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John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew? Chauchot, Christina Solmunde M

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Citation for published version (APA): Chauchot, C. S. M. (2017). ’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew? Publikationer fra Det teologiske Fakultet.

Download date: 26. sep.. 2021 SOLMUNDE MICHELSEN CHRISTINA ISBN 978-87-93361-34-8

CHRISTINA SOLMUNDE MICHELSEN John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew? Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew? John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: CHRISTINA SOLMUNDE MICHELSEN

John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew?

Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 75 SOLMUNDE MICHELSEN CHRISTINA ISBN 978-87-93361-34-8

CHRISTINA SOLMUNDE MICHELSEN John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew? Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew? John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: CHRISTINA SOLMUNDE MICHELSEN

John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew?

Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 75

John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20:

Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew?

The public defense will be held on September 22, 2017, from 13:15 at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, Søndre Campus, Karen Blixens Plads 16, 2300 Copenhagen S.

John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew?

Christina Solmunde Michelsen

PhD Dissertation Department of Biblical Studies Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen Supervisor: Mogens Müller 2017

John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew?

Publikationer fra Det Teologiske Fakultet 75

Licensed under CreativeCommons Christina Solmunde Michelsen

ISBN 978-87-93361-34-8 (print) ISBN 978-87-93361-38-6 (pdf)

Published by: Det Teologiske Fakultet Københavns Universitet Søndre Campus Karen Blixens Plads 16 2300 København S www.teol.ku.dk

Printing and binding by: Grafisk - Københavns Universitet 2017

Acknowledgements

The present dissertation was written during my PhD studies at the Department of Biblical Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen. I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to all those people who have encouraged and assisted me in my studies. I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Mogens Müller for his continued encouragement, support and guidance. I am also indebted to Prof. Heike Omerzu for her useful criticism and warm support during the final stage of the project. During the project I have participated at research seminars at l’Institut Protestant de Théologie de Paris. I express my gratitude to Corina Combet-Galland and Yann Redalié for the time they invested in reading and criticizing the first drafts of my dissertation. I would also like to thank my fellow doctoral students and colleagues at the Faculty of Theology in Copenhagen for stimulating and pleasant exchanges. Special thanks to Martin Friis, PhD, for his many valuable comments on the final manuscript. Certainly, I take full responsibility for whatever mistakes that might remain in the text. Finally, I want to thank my husband François for his continued interest and support.

Christina S. Michelsen, Paris, May 15, 2017

‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matt 13:52)

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Abbreviations

Unless otherwise stated, all abbreviations of journals and monograph series follow Siegfried M. Schwertner, Internationales Abkürzungsverzeichnis für Teologie und Grenzgebiete 3. Auflage. Berlin/Boston: W. de Gruyter, 2014.

AncB The Anchor (New York; London, 1964-) ABRL The Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York; London, 1977-) AThANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments (Zürich, 1944-) BECNT Baker exegetical commentary on the (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1994-) BEThL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum theologicarum Lovaniensium (Louvain, 1947-) BHTh Beiträge zur historischen Theologie (Tübingen, 1950-) BToSt Biblical Tools and Studies (Leuven, 2005-) BWANT Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament (Stuttgart et al., 1926-) BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche (Berlin, 1921-) CNT(N) Commentaire du Nouveau Testament (Neuchâtel, 1949-) DTT Dansk Teologisk tidsskrift (Copenhagen, 1938-) ErIsr Eretz-Israel (, 1951-) FBE Forum for Bibelsk Eksegese (Copenhagen, 1988-) FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments (Göttingen, 1903-) GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte (Berlin, 1971-) HThS Harvard theological studies (Cambridge, Mass. 1916-) HBS Herders biblische Studien (Freiburg, 1994-) HThKNT Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (Freiburg, 1953-) Hermeneia Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia, 1971-) (IATG 2nd, 1994) ICC International Critical Commentary (of the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments) (Edinburgh, 1895-) 7

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature (Philadelphia, 1890-) JJS Journal of Jewish Studies (Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, London, 1948-) JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period (Leiden, 1970-) JSJ.S Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman period (Leiden 1996-) JSNT Journal for the study of the New Testament (Sheffield, 1978-) JSNT.S Journal for the Study of the New Testament. Supplement series (Sheffield, 1980-) JSPE Journal for the study of the Pseudepigrapha (Sheffield, 1987-) JSPE.S Journal for the study of the Pseudepigrapha. Supplement series (Sheffield, 1987-) KEK Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament (Göttingen, 1832-) KEK.S Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament; Sonderband (Göttingen, 1956-) LCL Loeb Classical Library (London ; Cambridge Mass., 1912-) LHB Library of Hebrew bible/Old Testament studies (New York, 2005-) LNTS Library of New Testament Studies (London, 2006-) MdB Le Monde de la Bible (Paris, 1982-) MSSNTS Monograph series: Society for New Testament studies (London, 1965-) NA Nestle-Aland. Novum Testamentum Graece (28th edition, 2012) NICNT New international commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1951-) NT Novum Testamentum An international quarterly for New Testament and related studies (Leiden, 1956-) NTD Das Neue Testament Deutsch (Göttingen, 1932-) NTS New Testament Studies (Cambridge, 1954-) NT.S Novum Testamentum Supplements (Leiden, 1958-) NTOA Novum testamentum et orbis antiquus (Fribourg; Göttingen 1986) RNT Regensburger Neues Testament (Regensburg, 1956-) RSR Recherche de science Religieuse (Paris, 1910-) 8

SBLBMI Society of Biblical Literature The Bible and its modern interpreters (Philadelphia, 1985-) SBLMS Society of Biblical Literature Monograph series (Nashville,, N.Y., 1971-) SBLSP Society of Biblical Literature Seminar papers (Atlanta, 1976-) SBT Studies in biblical theology (London, 1950-) SC Sources chrétiennes (Paris, 1941-) StPB Studia post biblica (Leiden, 1959-) StTDJ Studies on the texts of the Desert of Judah (Leiden, 1957-) SKK.NT Stuttgarter kleiner Kommentar. Neues Testament (Stuttgart, 1986) StNT Studien zum Neuen Testament (Gütersloh, 1969-) SVigChr Supplements to Vigilae Christianae (Leiden, 1987-) TANZ Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (Tübingen, 1989-) ThHK Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament (Leipzig, 1928-) ThZ Theologische Zeitschrift (Basel, 1945-) WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament (Tübingen, 1950-) ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (Berlin, 1900-)

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Table of contents Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 6

PART I THE OF LUKE AS A BIBLICAL REWRITING

Introduction Introductory 15 Gospel Interpretation and the Synoptic Problem 17 :1-20 as a Case Study 19 Rewritten Bible and Gospel Writing 25 The Structure of the Thesis 28

Chapter 1 – Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 1.1. Methodological Preliminary 31 1.1.1 Vermes’ Discovery: Rewritten Bible 31 1.1.2. The Discovery of a Textual Strategy 34 1.1.3. An Outline of ’s Thesis 35 1.2. Gospel Writing in Light of Rewritten Scripture 40 1.2.1. Every Reading Involves Classificatory Decisions 41 1.2.2. The Endurance of Midrashic Tradition 43 1.3. Concluding remarks 46

Chapter 2 – The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 2.1. Introductory 49 2.1.1. Survey of Two Models 49 2.1.2. Eight Points Sustaining Synoptic Relationships 52 2.1.3. The Hypothesis of a Lost Source 56 2.1.4. Critique of the Two Source Hypothesis 61 2.2. Luke as a Rewriting of Mark and Matthew 66 2.2.1. The L/M Hypothesis 66 2.2.2. How a Gospel Emerges from its Predecessors 71 2.2.3. The “Problem” Behind the Synoptic Problem 71 2.3. Concluding Remarks 72

Chapter 3 – Disclosing a Rewriting Strategy 3.1. Introductory 75 3.1.1. Focus on Composition and Interpretive Method 75 3.1.2. Direction of Literary Dependence 78 3.1.3. Focus on “Literary Changes” in Luke Compared to Matthew 82 10

3.2. Concluding remarks 87

PART II LUKE’S CHARACTERIZATION OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

Chapter 4 – A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-.1. Introductory 91 4.1.1. John as a Narrative Figure 93 4.1.2. John the Baptist as an Early Christian Figure 95 4.2. Who is John the Baptist in Luke-Acts? 99 4.2.1. and Birth (A) 103 4.2.2. Public Ministry (B) 108 4.2.3. Captivity (C) 109 4.2.4. Post Mortem in Luke (D) 110 4.2.5. Post Mortem in Acts (E) 111 4.3. Concluding remarks 111

Chapter 5 – Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 5.1. Introductory 115 5.1.1. The Modified Name in Lk 3:2 Compared to Mt 3:1 (AM) 116 5.1.2. John’s Role as a Preacher Accentuated in Luke 120 5.2. Redaction Critical Approach to John the Baptist 123 5.2.1. Luke Narratively Reshapes the Baptist Figure 124 5.2.2. John as a Past Figure 127 5.3. Concluding remarks 130

Chapter 6 – Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 6.1. Introductory 133 6.1.1. The Baptizer’s Invented Testimony 134 6.1.2. Accentuating John’s Inferiority (3:16) 138 6.1.3. The Omitted Meeting between John and 140 6.2. Luke Tells about Two Separate Figures 143 6.2.1. John’s Authority Compared to the Messiah (Lk 3:15) 144 6.2.2. Luke’s Account on John’s Threefold Preaching (Lk 3:7-17) 148 6.3. Concluding Remarks 154

Chapter 7 – The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 7.1. Introductory 157 7.1.1. Anticipation of John’s imprisonment (Lk 3:18-20) 159 7.1.2. The End of John’s Ministry in Luke’s Narrative Structure 162 7.1.3. Luke’s Separation of Jesus from John 167 11

7.1.4. Luke 3 as Rewritten Matthew 3 175 7.2. Jesus’ Baptism With or Without John (Lk 3:21-22) 178 7.2.1. Jesus’ Baptism Supersedes the Baptizer 180 7.2.2. Jesus’ Specific Baptism 182 7.2.3. Luke’s Distinct Baptism Agenda 185 7.3. Three Distinguished Baptisms 187 7.3.1. Luke’s Modifications of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:3) 190 7.3.2. A Succeeding Baptism with the Holy Spirit (:5; 2:38) 194 7.4. Concluding remarks 200

Conclusion 201 Summary 205 Dansk sammenfatning 209 Bibliography 213 Primary sources 213 Secondary literature 214

Part I The as a Biblical Rewriting

Introduction

Introductory This dissertation should be seen as a contribution to current research in the field of New Testament Exegesis and approaches the canonical from a literary critical perspective. It employs insights from recent research on biblical rewritings1 in order to enlighten synoptic studies and the study of gospel interpretation. Based on Geza Vermes’ focus on “rewritten Bible”2 in literature from Second Temple Judaism, the dissertation seeks to trace the development of a creative textual strategy in the as exemplified by the portrait of John the Baptist in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles3. In this study, I seek to answer the following two questions: Is it possible to conceive of the evolution in the Baptist portrait through the gospels as reflecting different theological agendas? And secondly, could this portrait disclose a particular Lukan conception of John’s public ministry different from an earlier conception in Mark and Matthew?

1 I shall distinguish between biblical rewritings as a large category of biblical texts such as, for example, the New Testament texts, and rewritten Bible and rewritten Scripture as a narrow category, which has been used both as a narrow genre definition and as a term to describe the composing and interpreting method behind. In 2005 Moshe J. Bernstein stresses the importance of separating the method from the genre. Bernstein qualifies the rewritten Bible term as a useful tool for classification: “It is necessary to distinguish between the process “rewriting the Bible” and the genre “rewritten Bible.”” Moshe J. Bernstein, ““Rewritten Bible”: A Generic Category which has Outlived its Usefulness?” (Textus 22, 2005): 169-196, 195. In my view the latter is a literary classification, unlike the former. The narrow utilization of the term serves to place it as a subcategory of biblical interpretation in antiquity. Bernstein warns against replacing the term: “If we were to give up the category “rewritten Bible” as a genre by using it in the looser sense employed by many scholars, then we shall simply have to find another generic term to replace its narrow use.” Ibid, 196. 2 Geza Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies, (Leiden: E. J. Brill 1961). The following discussion of rewritten Bible will consider the problem of anachronism in dealing with the term “biblical” literature in a pre-canonical context. 3 I shall refer to the Lukan double work as “Luke-Acts”. Cadbury introduces the expression “Luke-Acts” in 1926 in Henry J. Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts, (London: S.P.C.K., 1958, 2nd ed. [1926]). When I refer to the Gospel of Luke as “Luke” I refer to the written text transmitted in the earliest collections of manuscripts. I base my thematic analysis on Luke in Nestle-Aland, conscious that it is an artificial reconstruction of different manuscripts. The portrait of John the Baptist in Luke can be compared to that of the three other canonical gospels. My analysis is not based upon text critical assessments. The aim is to compare different narrative strategies overt in the four reconstructed gospels. 16 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

My investigation focuses on the narrative strategy in Luke-Acts through an analysis of John the Baptist as a “rewritten figure”. The four gospels all have an introducing paragraph on the public ministry of the Baptist. Their accounts of his ministry, however, differ greatly from one another. Of these, Luke’s presentation is the most extensive account on John. It shares material with the Gospels of Mark, Matthew and John, and with Josephus’ Antiquities especially pertaining to the ethical aspect of John’s proclamation. Moreover, in the diptych infancy narrative and in the Acts, Luke adds special material on the Baptist figure, whereas Paul’s letters as the earliest writings of the New Testament have no mention of John the Baptist, neither of a baptism in his name. Throughout my analysis, it will be demonstrated how Luke’s depiction of John the Baptist can be considered a creative rewriting of Mark and Matthew rather than a ‘mere’ compilation of Mark and a presumed lost source labelled Q. This approach is based on on-going exegetical research on the synoptic problem where the “Two Source Hypothesis” (2SH) has been contested by representatives of rewriting theories such as the “L/M hypothesis,”4 implying that Luke rewrites Mark and Matthew. As we shall see in the following, both the 2SH and the L/M hypothesis presuppose that Luke displays some kind of literary dependence on one or more of the other gospels. Proponents of the 2SH do, however, strongly disagree on the number of already known or transmitted sources and on the question of chronology of Matthew and Luke’s redaction. These current explanations of the synoptic problem presuppose two different attitudes toward sources and hereby disclose different comprehensions of the status of the text. I shall demonstrate that Vermes’ concept of rewritten Bible is part of a larger hermeneutical perspective, and show to what extent it differs from structuralism’s concept of “narrative expansion.” In approaching the gospels as biblical rewritings I am faced by a hermeneutical question: what kind of truth is pretended by the text? Before the hermeneutical question can be addressed, I need to analyse the compositional and exegetical aspect of this particular rewriting. Does the Lukan narrative resemble a reliable compilation of sources, or a creative rewriting of sources? These questions demand a critical and constructive approach to Luke as a biblical rewriting.

4 Francis Watson proposes the term “L/M (= Luke/Matthew) theory,” Francis Watson, Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 118-119. He argues: “In the context of an attempt to show that the phenomena of the synoptic gospels make best sense on the theory that Luke had both Mark and Matthew at his disposal as he composed his own gospel.” John Drury defends a similar response to the synoptic problem in John Drury, Tradition and Design in Luke’s Gospel: A Study in Early Christian Historiography, (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 1976), 120. Introductory 17

Michael D. Goulder’s Luke: A New Paradigm (1989) marks an attempt to present the Gospel of Luke as a rewriting of Matthew.5 The ambitious layout of Goulder’s commentary tends to explain the entire gospel in relation to a presupposed reworking of Matthew. However, a weakness of this approach is his ambition to explain every double material pericope as rewritten Matthew in opposition to the 2SH. Another weakness is that his study does not take the dating of Matthew and Luke into account. As an alternative, the present dissertation combines an exegetical analysis with a systematic consideration of the hermeneutical implication of a rewritten Gospel. My primary aim is to show that there are examples of Luke’s knowledge and use of Matthew in the material that they both share about John the Baptist’s public ministry. I am to voice my criticism of the 2SH through a detailed exegesis of John the Baptist in Luke 3:1-20 in order to demonstrate that the specific material which Matthew 3:1-17 and Luke 3:1-20 share, traditionally called the double tradition material, is better explained by the L/M hypothesis than by the 2SH. This material can alternatively be studied as modified material according to the method of biblical rewritings, which was a common literary practice at the time of redaction. First, Matthew and Luke are potentially not rewriting a common lost source, and second, it has not been proven that they make independent use of Mark. More precisely, Luke has not necessarily edited Mark independently of Matthew.

Gospel Interpretation and the Synoptic Problem I shall proceed by defining my argument and how it structures my theoretical approach. This dissertation will put to a test the literary relationship between the Gospel of Luke and Matthew, with a focus on Luke’s rewriting of the Baptist figure. The 2SH is in the centre of my investigation and I contest its presumption that Matthew and Luke used Mark independently of one another. One pillar of the 2SH is the recognition of Mark as prior to Matthew and Luke. A second pillar is the assumption of the existence of a (hypothetical) source Q as an explanation

5 Douglas Goulder also proposes an alternative paradigm to what he labels the standard paradigm on the relationship between the gospels. Of the eight hypotheses in the standard paradigm of the 2SH Goulder recognizes only the third one which claims Markan priority. In Michael D. Goulder, Luke: A New Paradigm, (Sheffield: JSOT, 1989), 5. The sixth of his eight new hypotheses introduces Luke as rewritten Matthew: “Luke wrote his Gospel about 90 for a more , combining Mark and Matthew. He re-wrote Matthew’s birth narratives with the aid of the Old Testament, and he added new material of his own creation, largely parables, where his genius lay. The new material can almost always be understood as a Lucan development of matter in Matthew. There was hardly any L (Sondergut).” Ibid, 22-23. 18 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 of the double tradition, which is the material Matthew and Luke have in common beyond their dependence on Mark. My first objection to the 2SH is the lack of material evidence for a common source to Matthew and Luke. Not a single fragment of Q has ever been found. The 2SH presupposes a result of rewriting independently rendered in Matthew and Luke, and Q remains a reconstruction. To deduce from a written and transmitted result is to extrapolate from known to unknown: The 2SH creates an unnecessary supplement. For we already have knowledge of, and access to, two gospels that tell about the same figures. It should be our priority to assess and demonstrate if, and to what extent, there is a clearly observable literary dependency of Luke on Matthew before we turn to speculations on a lost source. The as it is presented by James M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann and John S. Kloppenborg in The Critical Edition of Q is an artificial reconstruction based on a deduction from Matthew and Luke.6 I base my investigation on a literary analysis on the assumption that Luke could be a later harmonization of both Mark and Matthew’s rewriting of Mark.7 Three points indicate a “new” relationship between Matthew and Luke. First, Luke has written a sequel to his account of the life of Jesus in the form of a history, which tells the acts of his immediate successors, the apostles Peter and Paul.8 Recent scholarship dates Acts in

6 The product of the International Q Project in James M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann, and J. S. Kloppenborg, The Critical Edition of Q: A Synopsis Including the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark and Thomas With English, German and French of Q and Thomas, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000). This project attempts to reconstruct the wording of Q. Robinson expresses the ambition that the work should be “equally usable for scholars of all opinions and thus function as a standard tool in our discipline.” Robinson 2000, lxvi. 7 The biblical rewriting is a type of composition characterized by a harmonizing activity. Geza Vermes defines a rewritten Bible text, as “a narrative that follows Scripture but includes a substantial amount of supplements and interpretative developments” in his revised edition of Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ vol. III, part 1., (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986), 326. According to Philip Alexander’s formal literary characteristics of rewritten Bible texts (point b, d, f and i), these texts have a harmonizing effect. They aim at “a synthesis of the whole tradition (both biblical and extra-biblical) within a biblical framework: they seek to unify the tradition on a biblical base.” Philip S. Alexander, “Retelling the Old Testament” in D. A. Carson and H. Williamson (eds.), It is Written: Scripture citing Scripture. Essays in honour of Lindars, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 99-121, 118. 8 Mikeal C. Parsons argues that the prologue in Acts 1:1-2 presents Acts as Luke’s sequel: “In it, Luke will continue to relate the events that transpired among the earliest , from shortly after Jesus’ death until just before Paul’s.” Mikeal C. Parsons, Luke: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), 2. Introductory 19 the beginning of the second century.9 This dating could mean that Luke’s gospel may have been written much later than has hitherto been supposed.10 Matthew’s gospel could have been written several decades prior to that of Luke. The latter could therefore ostensibly read the work of the former. Secondly, Luke could be a “writing reader” of Matthew in the same way as the latter has rewritten Mark, and in light of the way Josephus and Pseudo- Philo have rewritten biblical literature.11 Finally, in the shape of an expanded narrative, Luke inserts veiled commentaries and makes subtle changes to John the Baptist. These changes are visible as new propositions on material we find in Mark and Matthew. The late attestation of Luke is therefore important to my analysis. The proponents of the 2SH seem to acknowledge that Matthew and Luke both rewrote Mark creatively. Yet, they argue that (to them, contemporary) evangelists did so independent of one another. My second objection to the 2SH concerns the incoherence in this presupposition. If a majority of scholars admit that Matthew and Luke rewrote Mark, why is there resistance to consider the potential literary dependency of Luke on Matthew?12 To test if Luke rewrites the Markan and the Matthean portraits of John the Baptist demands a short introduction to the theoretical approaches of rewritten Bible and of the synoptic problem. Does the rewriting perspective enlighten the interpretive process in Gospel writing? Could this interpretive process be an alternative approach to the synoptic problem? These questions will be examined further in chapter 1 and 2.

Luke 3:1-20 as a Case Study In this section, I present the material that I have chosen to assess the pervasive hypothesis of a lost source (Q) and my alternative account of

9 Richard Pervo argues: “Acts was written c. 115 by an anonymous author whose perspective was that of or its general environs. This date is close to the end of the second generation of Deutero-Pauline activity, the era of the Apostolic Fathers and the Pastoral , when the focus was on the protection of established communities from external and internal threats.” Richard Pervo, Acts, a Commentary, (Minnapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 5. Niels Hyldahl pleads for a date near A.D. 140 for the redaction of Acts. See Niels Hyldahl, “Über die Abfassungszeit des lukanischen Doppelwerks” in Martina Janssen, F. S. Jones and J. Wehnert (eds.), Frühes Christentum und Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 75-82. 10 For a discussion on Luke/Acts as a double work written by the same author see Pervo 2009, 7-8. 11 Concerning the tendency of rewriting in antique Jewish literature see Louis H. Feldman, Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible, (Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 1998), 539-543. 12 This question concerns the hypothesis of literary dependency between Matthew and Luke with either Lukan or Matthean posteriority. 20 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 sources. It prepares my subsequent reading of Luke’s rewriting of John the Baptist in the following chapters. The case proposed here is the portrait of John the Baptist in Lk 3:1-20. This pericope about the Baptist’s public ministry is told by all four gospels.13 Still there are significant disagreements between these four written accounts. The narrative is also of particular interest because it constitutes the beginning limit of the hypothetical source Q as it has recently been reconstructed by the International Q Project (IQP).14 In the analysis below I shall therefore compare the account of John’s public ministry in Lk 3:1-20 with Mk 1:1-11 and Mt 3:1-17, with regard to what the Critical Edition of Q proposes as “The Introduction of John (Q 3:2b- 3a), “John’s announcement of judgment” (Q 3:7-9) and “John and the One to come” (Q 3:16-17).15 This reconstructed text is available for testing, and I propose an alternative solution to explain why Luke and Matthew share material about John’s identity (Lk 3:2), John’s authority (Lk 3:7-9 and Mt 7-10), and about the quality of John’s baptism (Lk 3:16-17 and Mt 3:11- 12). I will argue that the narrative sequence on the Baptist’s public ministry in Luke 3:1-20 is best explained on source critical grounds, as it provides strong evidence for Luke’s use of Matthew, and for Luke’s knowledge of Matthew’s use of Mark. The IQP proposes a separation of a specific double tradition from the narrative context. I, however, consider such a separation highly detrimental for an analysis of the internal relationship between Matthew and Luke. Throughout my analysis, I shall not limit my investigation to the specific points of contact between Matthew and Luke alone. Instead, I shall consider a wider range of literary and thematic overlaps within the synoptic tradition as a whole related to Lk 3:1-20. Further, I provide numerous examples of literary changes made by Luke throughout his double work that pertain to his reinterpretation and re- figuration of John and Jesus and their mutual relationship. Neither Q nor the presumed double tradition should define the limits for studying a probable literary relationship between Matthew and Luke.

13 The makes a particular treatment of John the Baptist, which differs from the synoptic gospels on several points. It demands a study a part to discuss this relationship. The possible independency of the Johannine version is relevant to my investigation. It also makes thematic treatment of the Baptist figure. 14 Robinson concedes that the Q text is hypothetical: “The only presupposition is the general outcome of the history of Q research that has rendered the undertaking possible at all, namely the conclusion that there was a written Greek text of Q, which functioned as an archetype, copies of which were available to the Matthean and Lukan communities and used by their evangelists.” Robinson 2000, lxvi. 15 Robinson 2000, 4-17. Introductory 21

This test case serves to complete supplement arguments for the Farrer- Goulder-Goodacre Hypothesis (i.e., Lukan reliance on Matthew in the context of Markan Priority).16 In The Case against Q argues that the first major part of hypothetical Q has narrative properties, although this material is presented by the IQP as a saying source:

There is some logical narrative progression in successive units, as when we move in sequence from John’s preaching about repentance attending his own baptism (Q 3:7f), to his preaching about the coming one’s baptism (Q 3:16f), to the baptism of that coming one, Jesus, by John (Q 3:21-22); or when Jesus’ baptism by John apparently prepares the way for the “spirit” to lead Jesus to the wilderness where he is tested as a “son.17

The research context of this question is represented by the proponents of the IQP and their reconstruction of Q. Their hypothesis is criticized by Goodacre who defines Q’s true nature as “the material extrapolated from comparison between the non-Markan elements common to Matthew and Luke.”18 I disagree with the assumption of Q defenders such as Kloppenborg, “that Luke has edited Mark independently of Matthew.”19 A position which is also pronounced in a commentary on Matthew, that Luke “betrays no knowledge of the obvious Matthean additions to the Markan material.”20 On the contrary, I adhere to Goodacre’s opposite argument that Luke prefers Matthew’s version to Mark’s on the Baptist’s public ministry, which is precisely the test case of my analysis. On this subject, Goodacre argues in his contribution to SBL’s Seminar Papers in 2000:

On the assumption that Luke knows Matthew as well as Mark, Luke prefers Matthew’s version to Mark’s in several triple tradition incidents: the whole John the Baptist complex (Matt. 3, , Luke 3); the Temptation (…), the Beelzebub Controversy (…) and the Mustard Seed (…) among them. On all of these occasions, the parallels between Matthew and Luke are more extensive than those between Mark and Luke. Indeed the early parts of each Gospel are particularly rich in

16 For the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis see Mark Goodacre The case against Q: Studies in Markan Priority and the Synoptic Problem (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2002), 10-11. 172-176. 17 Goodacre 2002, 175-176. 18 Goodacre 2002, 185. 19 John S. Kloppenborg, Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 41. 20 See William D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Matthew, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988), 116. 22 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

examples of Luke apparently following Matthew’s modified versions of the shorter Markan pericopae.21

The Markan narrative opens with a short description of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. I contend that Mark is the oldest gospel, whereas Matthew, John and Luke are all later stations in an interpretative tradition of gospel writing. This dissertation approaches the literary strategy22 of Luke in order to interrogate what the gospel of Luke narrates about John the Baptist, in which order and how it results in an alternative portrait of the Baptist in the narratives of Mark and Matthew. In recent years, Lukan studies have been interested in engaging in a dialogue with classical and modern literary criticism.23 Peter Böhlemann, Christoph G. Müller and Thomas L. Brodie24 are examples of narrative critical approaches to Luke’s Baptist portrait and the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus’ public ministries. It is striking that neither of these monographs is concerned with the existence of Q,25 neither do they need to speculate about Q in order to understand that Luke’s interpretation of the Baptist figure is very different from that of Mark and Matthew. An analysis of Lukan literary creativity can dispense with the discussion and designation of lost sources. In opposition to these narrative critical studies,

21 Mark Goodacre “A Monopoly on ? Fallacies at the Heart of Q” in SBL 2000 Seminar Papers, (Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 583-622, 595-596. Goodacre stresses John’s the Baptist’s prophecy about Jesus (Mt 3:11-12, Mk 1:17-8 and Lk 3:16-17) as an example in which Luke prefers Mattthew’s version to Mark’s. Ibid, 597. I shall treat this example in chapter 6. 22 The literary strategy will be evaluated through the literary and ideological changes in Luke compared to Mark and Matthew. 23 Some examples of Lukan studies stressing the gospel’s literary and theological agenda are Charles Talbert, Reading Luke: A Literary and theological Commentary on the Third Gospel, (New York: Crossroad, 1984); Robert Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation, Volume one: The Gospel according to Luke, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986); B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) and François Bovon, Luc le théologien, (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2006). 24 Peter Böhlemann, Jesus und der Täufer. Schlüssel zur Theologie und Ethik des Lukas, (Cambridge, 1997), 1-6; Christoph G. Müller, Mehr als ein Prophet: die Charakterzeichnung Johannes des Täufers im lukanischen Erzählwerk, (Freiburg; Basel; New York: Herder, 2001), 12-24; Thomas L. Brodie argues that the entire - Elisha narrative was a foundational model for the development of the Gospels. Thomas L. Brodie, The Crucial Bridge. The Elijah-Elisha Narrative as an Interpretive Synthesis of Genesis-Kings and as a Literary Model for the Gospels, (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 79-80. 25 They only refer to Q as a hypothesis with fluent borders. As an example, C. G. Müller relates the difficulties to explain Q in Lk 3:15-17. Müller 2001, 157-158. Introductory 23 recent contributions to an understanding of the Baptist as a narrative figure such as Josef Ernst, Michael Tilly and Claire K. Rothschild’s monographs build upon Q as if it was established as a Lukan source beside Mark.26 The aforementioned narrative critical approach instead seeks to minimize the importance of Q, and is therefore the position, which I adopt in the following. The narrative strategy of Luke as a rewriting can be studied in every part of the Lukan double work. I focus on the public ministry of John the Baptist in Lk 3:1-20 in light of Luke-Acts and in comparison to Mt 3:1-17. The double annunciation and birth narrative on John and Jesus27 told by Luke is another example of the implied author’s strategy.28 This is also the case with the narrative29 which makes the risen Christ appear as a biblical interpreter while he retells his own ministry in the light of Scripture.30 The question at the heart of this dissertation is something that is often considered a detail, although it seems to be a detail never neglected: Why is John the Baptist absent at the in Luke 3:21-22? Commentators, such as A. Fitzmyer and François Bovon explain the absence by stylistic reasons.31 They advise the reader to distinguish between stylistic choices and chronology. In their logic, when Luke tells us that John is put in prison before describing Jesus’ baptism, this is a stylistic

26Josef Ernst introduces “Johannes der Täufer in der Logienquelle” as if material on John the Baptist in Q was an established issue. Josef Ernst, Johannes der Täufer: Interpretation-Geschichte-Wirkungsgeschichte, (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 1989), 39-80. Michael Tilly follows Josef Ernst in proposing a chapter on the Baptist figure in Q. Michael Tilly, Johannes der Täufer und die Biographie der Propheten. Die synoptische Täuferüberlieferung und das jüdische Prophetenbild zur Zeit des Täufers, (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1994), 69-104. He moreover has a chart on Q passages on John as a Prophet. Ibid, 145. Claire K. Rothschild provides a chart of all NT references to John in which she includes passages from Q under the columns of both “Matthew” and “Luke.” Claire K. Rothschild, Baptist Traditions and Q, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 44-46. She has a chapter on “Baptist Traditions and Q”. Ibid, 83-128. And she stresses that Q’s opening verse according to scholarly consensus begins with John. Ibid, 127. 27 Lk 1:1-2:7. 28 Like Acts, Luke is written by an anonymous author. Research therefore must deal with the concepts of an implied author and a principal narrator. Pervo 2009, 5. 29 Lk 24:26-27. 30 The two latter examples could be issues for further studies on Luke’s narrative strategy, while the limits of the present work do not allow treating them here. 31 This pertains to for instance François Bovon, L’Evangile selon saint Luc (1,1-9,50), (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1991), 174, and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke (I-IX), (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1981), 481-482. And in a socio-historical approach to John the Baptist see Robert L. Webb, John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Socio-Historical Study, (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 61. 24 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 choice and not necessarily the chronological order of the events. The danger of this reading is the harmonizing tendency behind it. For it corrects Luke’s narrative through a reading of Mark and Matthew. These commentators presuppose that Luke is bound by his sources.32 That Luke compiles sources in a conservative and non-creative way. Other commentators, such as Christopher F. Evans and Paul-Gerhard Müller contend that the differences in the Lukan account are thematically significant.33 They distinguish the Lukan version from the Markan and Matthean. They read that John is taken away from Jesus’ baptism scene. That John no longer is described as Jesus’ baptizer. It is noteworthy that Q- defenders disagree if Q tells about Jesus’ baptism or not. Robinson and ICQ’s work includes Jesus baptism by John Q 21-22,34 while John Kloppenborg by contrast does not.35 A host of commentaries touch upon this question and propose divergent solutions, and I shall refer to them throughout my dissertation. In focusing on Luke’s famous omission, I shall read it in its immediate literary context and in the broader context of the Lukan double work. My aim is to consider if the Lukan omission of John the Baptist at Jesus’ baptism is due to more than a stylistic motivation, and to what extent it has influenced both the thematic and chronological line of Luke’s narrative. More specifically shall I evaluate if there are textual examples that disclose Luke’s use of Matthew. In addition to this, I shall analyse how Luke places John’s incarceration in direct contrast to Jesus’ baptism, in opposition to Mark and Matthew (more on this below, in chapter 7).36 I argue that Brodie

32 Numerous studies on Matthew and Luke in recent years presume the existence of Q and explain differences between the two as different interpretations of Q. In his commentary, for example, Bovon explains Luke’s description of Johns’ Baptism as a modification of Mark and Q. Bovon 1991, 175. 33 For the view stressing that Luke has a new chronological perspective see Christopher Francis Evans, Saint Luke, (London: SCM Press, 1990), 246. And Paul-Gerhard Müller: “Es wird nicht erwähnt, wie Jesus von Galiläa an dem Jordan kam und welches Verhältnis er zu den Täuferjüngern hatte. Johannes selbst wird hier nicht als Täufer Jesu genannt, vgl. Mt 3,14f.” Paul-Gerhard Müller, Lukas-Evangelium, (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984), 49. 34 Robinson 2000, 18-20. 35 John S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 84-85. Rothschild follows Kloppenborg who does not include Jesus’ baptism in Q. She moreover argues that Matthew and Luke disagree with Mark’s description of Jesus’ baptism by John, and it is her assumption that they did so separately. Rothschild 2005, 73. 36 Jesus’ baptism is characterized by the reception of the Holy Spirit in Luke 3:21-22, but unlike Mark and Matthew the spirit and the heavenly voice announcing Jesus’ son- Introductory 25 and Böhlemann’s narrative approach sustain the thesis that Luke rewrote both Mark and Matthew creatively.37 Böhlemann’s hypothesis is that: “Die überbietende Parallelität von Jesus und Johannes ist also das strukturier- ende Prinzip für die vier ersten Kapitel des Lukasevangeliums.”38 With help from narrative criticism this dissertation shows how John the Baptist’s public ministry is restructured and reshaped by Luke in order to express a new theological agenda on the figure and on the relationship between John and Jesus. A recognition of Luke’s literary creativity would provide us with new insights into the origin of the gospel genre as a whole. Many advances have been made in biblical scholarship in the last 150 years, since the invention of Q. Goodacre argues that previously “Q helped to establish the reality of Markan priority and played a key role in helping us to forge the tool of , the tool which in the end, ironically, plays a part in dispensing with it.”39 With the Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre hypothesis there is a wish to leave Q and take up new challenges. Goodacre argues that Luke’s transformations of Matthew’s non-Markan material are numerous, and that they provoke questions on Luke’s ideological and textual motives:

While the Q theory allows one to abstain from considering Luke’s arrangements of material by projecting them onto the hypothetical order of Q, and Luke’s conservative policy in relation to them, Q skeptics are forced to take seriously the literary rationale for the decisions Luke has apparently made, considerations that begin to look most plausible when we ask for help from hitherto underutilized friends like narrative criticism.40

However, the assumption of the 2SH that almost all of Luke’s Q material occurs in three blocks (Lk 3:1-4:16, Lk 6:20-7:35, Lk 9:51-18)41 makes Lk 3:1-20 a good place to start.

Rewritten Bible and Gospel Writing This dissertation applies insights from the study of rewritten Bible to the early Christian Jesus tradition as it is fixed in the canonical gospels. Whereas the focus on biblical rewritings mainly is on apocryphal and pseudepigraphic literature related to the Old Testament, there has in recent ship are the only agents in the baptism narrative. The baptism proposed by Peter in :38 is also characterized by the gift of the Holy Spirit. 37By comparison, Dibelius initial analysis in 1911 of the gospels’ portraits of the Baptist figure convinced him that these were not historical reports but passages designed for preaching. Dibelius does so in spite of his acceptance of the existence of a source. 38 Böhlemann 1997, 302. 39 Goodacre 2002, 189. 40 Goodacre 2002, 189. 41 Goodacre 2002, 181. 26 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 years been a growing interest in reading the gospels in light of biblical rewritings. Why do I introduce the literary strategy of rewritten Bible into New Testament exegesis? The aim is to test if the rewriting perspective pertains to the history of gospel interpretation and writing. Does it enlighten our analysis of Luke’s hermeneutical technique?42 I do not establish an author’s hand behind the Gospel of Luke through analysis of vocabulary and theological tendencies. Instead, the analysis pertains to the hermeneutical technique of the Gospel of Luke through the modifications it makes to comparable narratives, which could be previous to Luke. Throughout the analysis, I shall present an alternative approach to the synoptic problem. The rewriting perspective dispenses with a lost source to explain the relationship between Matthew and Luke. Hereby it opens up recognition of Luke’s interpretative activity. To read Luke as a narrative with an evangelist’s implicit critic of Mark and Matthew is different from reading the gospel as a rewriting of Mark and of a lost saying source lacking a narrative frame. Rewritten Bible covers both specific texts and a larger literary strategy. The principle behind a biblical rewriting such as Jubilees is that a later author used a previous text, in this case mainly Genesis, with creativity which results in a new autonomous composition. The difference between the authoritative Vorlage and the rewriting is erased. An approach to the compositional technique behind rewritings necessitates a discussion of the method of rewritings and the categories of changes. For this purpose Philip Alexander’s nine criteria to identify a rewritten Bible text are useful, although the four works proposed by him belong to literature from Second Temple Judaism and are rewritings of the Jewish Scripture.43 Chapter 1 compare the concept of biblical rewritings to the broader perspective on rewriting in literature discussed in French structuralism of the 1960’s. A literary rewriting is characterized by omissions, additions and alterations in an absorbing and transforming narrative. The theorist Gérard Genette deals with this phenomenon as “hypertextuality”,44 while Roland Barthes argues in the line of the former that every narrative is expandable

42 Luke most probably discloses more than one literary technique. Still the hermeneutical aspect of rewriting in Luke has not been sufficiently studied. 43 Alexander analyses and compares the formal literary characteristics of four works normally included in what he defines as rewritten Bible texts: Jubilees, Genesis Apocryphon, the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, and Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities. Alexander 1988, 99-121. 44 Gérard Genette, Palimpsestes: la littérature au second degré, (Paris: Seuil, 1982). Introductory 27 through “catalysis”.45 Structuralism is qualified by scepticism towards a text’s referential claims and concerned with the internal relations of the narrative’s claims. It recognizes a phenomenon of narrative expansion in literature and shares with research on Biblical rewritings the focus on how interpretation interplays with the presentation of the rewriting. In chapter 1 the aim is to evaluate if the phenomenon described by Geza Vermes and Philip Alexander as rewritten Bible is comparable to the exegetical processes at work in the Lukan double work. Fluidity in transmission was common within the biblical narratives of second Temple Judaism, why then should the gospels be the only contemporary texts of this exegetical milieu, which did not lean to the compositional procedure of rewriting? How can we understand the Lukan rewriting of John the Baptist? The Baptist figure is in a subtle way neither included nor excluded from the Gospel of Luke. This claim has narrative, confessional as well as ideological implications for our understanding of the figure. John the Baptist in Luke is a plastic, liquid character, not only rewritten in a formal sense, but also reinterpreted in a more thematic sense. The figure should be seen in context with the Lukan double oeuvre as a whole. The Lukan rewriting of John the Baptist involves a hermeneutical approach of part and whole. Luke is a “writing reader”, and the reception of John the Baptist forms a history of effects, which is still open for new readings. These perspectives involve a structural and hermeneutical horizon. The creativity of the Lukan writing pertains to this structural openness addressed in contemporary theory of reading and writing. What then are the themes coagulating in the blood of the Baptist? Baptism, repentance, remission of sins, old and new, “Die Mitte der Zeit”, and the whole Lukan interpretation of Christ and history? The theology of the early church is downplaying the conflict of Peter and Paul in Acts. Is there a similar harmonizing tendency in Luke’s attempt to downplay a conflictual interpretation of Jesus and John? The Lukan preface refers to the use of many predecessors (Lk 1:1). Yet, the fact that Luke is a longer narrative than the two other synoptic gospels is not necessarily due to multiple sources.46 It might simply be longer

45 “Les catalyses, les indices et les informants ont en effet un caractère commun : ce sont des expansions (…) Comme la phrase, le récit est infinement catalysable.” Roland Barthes, “Introduction à l’analyse structural des récits” Communications, 8, 1966 (Recherches sémiologiques : l’analyse structural du récit), 1-27, 11. 46 For an analysis of Luke’s preface in its ancient literary context see Loveday Alexander, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel: Literary convention and social context in .1-4 and Acts 1.1, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). She argues: “Scientific literature contains many examples of overlapping and parallel traditions of the type we have in the synoptic Gospels: Phil, Vitruvius and Hero provide good 28 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 because it responds to new problems.47 There is an initial contradiction between Luke’s claim to tell “the truth (ἀσφάλειαν [Lk 1:4])” and the fact that it visibly transforms the story of Christian beginnings. On this point Luke’s preface and textual strategy can be compared to Josephus’ Antiquities. Both pretend to offer a reliable account while rewriting their sources creatively. Both narratives take part in a history of interpretation and are rooted in a specific cultural context and exegetical milieu. They do not treat their sources with the critical distance of modern , and are therefore not historians in a modern sense of the term. The claim on reliability concerns the hermeneutical question of this dissertation, if the gospel responds a mainly historical, theological or literary task.

The Structure of the Thesis The thesis is comprised of two parts. Part I offers an introduction to a new approach on gospel writing in light of biblical rewritings. Chapter 1 focuses on how the concept of rewritten Bible has developed since Geza Vermes coined the term in the 1960’s. It examines the extent to which Luke in its relationship to Matthew can be compared to other biblical rewritings such as Chronicles in its relationship to /Kings.48 It combines the rewriting perspective with Gérard Genette’s approach to hypertextuality in literature from antiquity to the 20th century. The modifications and the strategy at work in a biblical rewriting are defined by Philip Alexander, and has been an innovative technique to approach the history of biblical interpretation. Alexander’s method will serve as a model in the analysis of how the Matthean Baptist figure is rewritten in the Lukan narrative. Chapter 2 sketches out the L/M hypothesis and compares it to the 2SH as two among multiple source critical models concerned with the synoptic problem. The main argument of Part I is that Luke can be studied in a

examples (…). In each case the preface stresses simply a general indebtedness to ‘tradition.’ Ibid, 208. 47 Speculation on why Luke wrote can take out-spring in the prooemium (Luke 1:1-4). P. Moessner takes the Lukan double work into account as a new narrative configuration of previous traditions and narratives. He argues that “Luke’s new ‘narrative sequence’ (kathexēs) would seem to indicate that he is not fully satisfied with the narrative accounts of the ‘many’, especially since his own enterprise should produce a ‘firmer grasp of the true significance’ (epignōs…tēn asphaleian) of those ‘from the beginning’ (ap’ arches) traditions ‘delivered over to us (paredosan hēmin) (verse 2a→v.4).” David P. Moessner, “How Luke writes” in M. Bockmuehl and D. A. Hagner (eds.) The Written Gospel, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005: 149-170, 165. 48 Chronicles repeats a major part of what is told in Samuel/Kings. In spite of that it is a story on its own with new theological claims compared to Samuel/Kings. Introductory 29 rewriting perspective as an alternative to a traditional focus on sources and redaction. This perspective is proposed in chapter 3 as an alternative to source theories, which presuppose transmitted and hypothetical lost sources compiled by Luke more or less without creativity. Part I establishes the theoretical and methodological frames of biblical rewritings and of the synoptic problem. It is a prerequisite for the subsequent analysis in Part II. Part II investigates how Luke rewrites and refigures the public ministry of John the Baptist through the evangelist’s use of omitted, new, adapted and reserved material. Furthermore, this part of the dissertation examines how the Lukan double work discloses a new theological agenda on the figure. Chapter 4 sketches out an overview of the Baptist figure in Luke- Acts. It approaches John the Baptist as an early Christian figure49 whom each evangelist characterizes according to his own theology. The synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John all contain an introducing paragraph on the Baptist figure, although they appear as four distinctive versions. The analysis in chapters 5 to 7 compare the different written accounts on the Baptist’s public ministry in Luke 3:1-20 with those in Matthew 3:1-17 and suspends with the need of a lost source to explain what Matthew and Luke have in common against Mark. I shall demonstrate how the material set forth by defenders of the 2SH as Q 3:2b-3a, Q 3:7-9 and Q 3:16-17 is better explained as Luke’s rewriting of Matthew in the form of an expanded narrative. Matthew’s and Luke’s different presentations of John the Baptist’s public ministry touch upon three key themes: the Baptist’s identity, his authority compared to Jesus, and the quality of John’s baptism compared to a later baptism that conveys the Holy Spirit after John’s imprisonment. First, Lk 1 has interwoven the addition of John’s annunciation narrative into Jesus’ annunciation and birth narrative. Luke is the only evangelist to recount John’s origin and infancy. Chapter 5 analyses how this literary and thematic change indicates Luke’s anticipation of the relationship between John and Jesus. Secondly, in his account of John’s public ministry, Luke inserts the Messiah expectation directed to John (Lk 3:15), whereas the preceding presentation of John’s infancy (Lk 1-2) denies that the figure could be interpreted as a competing Messiah figure. Luke downplays the baptizer’s authority both by the name ‘John the son of Zachariah’ (3:2) and by what follows John’s imprisonment before Jesus’ baptism (3:19-20). Chapter 6 argues that Luke in a positive assessment also modifies and

49 John the Baptist is a Christian figure in the sense that the accounts on this figure as related to have been transmitted through the writings of early Christianity, in the gospels and not in the letters of Paul. By contrast to the gospels accounts, Josephus’ Antiquities does not link the Baptist to the figure of Jesus. 30 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 expands upon John’s preaching (Lk 3:18) in a way so that John prepares Jesus’ announcement of the good news (Lk 4:18). Thirdly and finally, the description of the quality of John’s baptism is further developed in Acts, while the end of John’s public ministry is told prior to Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism.50 Luke disagrees with both Mark and Matthew on this point. Luke summarizes the public ministry of John the Baptist, and rewrites the Matthean description of Jesus’ baptism. Chapter 7 moreover demonstrates that certain ideas in Matthew linked to the baptizer and to baptism have been reserved to an earlier or later narrative context by Luke. All citations from (and translations of) Greco-Roman sources follow the respective Loeb editions. All biblical quotations in English follow the New Revised Standard Version with Greek inserts from the Nestle-Aland 28th edition (2012).

50 If a reader only had access to Luke why should he understand John as Jesus’ baptizer? He can positively understand John as a forerunner, a preacher, a baptizer and preparing helper. But all of these details about John are only important in Luke’s perspective as far as they focus on Jesus. Here Luke agrees with :23, where John has become only a voice and no longer an independent preacher. Ernst argues that John has become the finger pointing towards χριστός (in Luke) and toward lamb in John 1:29, 36. See Ernst 1997, 161.

Chapter 1 Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible

1.1. Methodological Preliminary Exegetical work implies certain common standards. This dissertation faces particular methodological problems that have been elaborated in the various schools of modern scholarly work. Method has to do with approaches, and this is a more overall philosophical paradigm, while other methodological questions has to do with criteria and more technical questions about influence, creativity, rewriting and a host of other. One can distinguish between method in the sense of interpretation, on what is the issue of the text, and method in the sense of how we decide if our reading is valid, and not just an invention. These questions cannot be closed down once and for all, but at least exegetical work requires that we make sound arguments for the readings we suggest.

1.1.1 Vermes’ Discovery: Rewritten Bible This subsection introduces the concept of rewritten Bible historically and theoretically. A review of the status quaestionis discloses a concept with fluent borders, which scholars have used in a variety of ways. Scholars have drawn attention to the fluent borders of rewritten Bible as paradigm or theory. Still the concept is operational in so far as it discloses a hermeneutical method in biblical literature, and it has value for the history of biblical interpretation. An introduction of Alexander’s model serves as a description of the narrative characteristics of biblical rewritings, which is primary to an investigation of Luke as one. The intention is not to present an exhaustive study on rewritten Bible, which has been done well already.51 What is of importance, however, is to trace the evolution from an initial definition of a narrow group of texts to a large field of biblical rewritings including New Testament literature. The following presentation of methodological approaches is divided into three areas. First, it will sketch out the concept of rewritten Bible and the larger concept of hypertextuality. Then, it will question to what extend Luke’s literary strategy is comparable to the process of “rewriting the Bible”. For this purpose a presentation of Philip Alexander’s identification of nine characteristics literary aspects of a rewritten Bible text is needed. Finally, it

51 Sidnie W. Crawford, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times, (Grands Rapids (Mich.): W. B. Eerdmans, 2008). And Sidnie W. Crawford, ““Rewritten Bible” in North American Scholarship” in Devorah Dimant (ed.) The Dead Sea Scrolls in Scholarly Perspective: A History of Research, (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012), 75-78. 32 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 will outline two models of approaches to the synoptic problem in relation to the structure and content of Luke 3:1-20. My subject of investigation is part of a larger evaluation of rewritings of biblical literature. A view of the concept over half a century, it is noteworthy that the texts now ascribed as rewritten Bible initially were described as “Die heilige Legende” in Emil Schürer’s Geschichte de Jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (1909). Vermes modified Schürer’s definition “Die heilige Legende” to “Biblical Midrash” in the new English revised edition dealing with a large range of Jewish Literature genres (1986).52 Vermes compares rabbinic midrash and biblical midrash to rewritten Bible,53 which is considered as one genre amongst others in Vermes’ new edition of Schürer’s work on Second Temple Literature. Concerning Pseudo-Philo’s retelling of the biblical story from to the death of Saul Vermes states that:

The genre of the composition is that of the ‘rewritten Bible’ (Vermes) or ‘texte continue’ (Perrot), i.e. a narrative that follows Scripture but includes a substantial amount of supplement and interpretative developments, its fullest example being the Jewish Antiquities of Josephus, and its prototype the biblical Chronicles.54

The concept of rewritten Bible is originally developed through a religionsgeschichtlicher comparison of rewritings of antique Judaism. Vermes, the inventor of this nomenclature, concentrated on a specific domain and his investigation concerned a rather narrow amount of writings defined as a specific genre.55 The subsequent decades saw a broadening of the definition including many more Second Temple Jewish works and concentrating on the procedure of rewriting.56 J. Harrington, for

52 Schürer 1986, 308. 53 Schürer 1986, 326. See Vermes’ definition of rewritten Bible in Vermes 1961, 124- 126. 54 Schürer 1986, 326. We find the term ’midrash’ twice in 2 Chr. 13:22; 24:27. 55 Vermes argues that his examination of the Yashar story, the rabbinic midrash Sefer ha-Yashar from circa the eleventh century AD, fully illustrates what is meant by the term rewritten Bible: “In order to anticipate questions, and to solve problems in advance, the midrashist inserts haggadic development into the biblical narrative – an exegetical process which is probably as ancient as scriptural interpretation itself. The Palestinian Targum and Jewish Antiquities, Ps.-Philo and Jubilees, and the recently discovered “Genesis Apocryphon” (…) each in their own way show how the Bible was rewritten about a millennium before the redaction of Sefer ha-Yashar.” Vermes 1961, 95. 56 Philip Alexander and Moshe Bernstein argue in favour of a rewritten Bible genre. Bernstein proposes that the term should be defined as tightly as possible to maximize its Chapter 1: Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 33 example, opposed to a genre definition on rewritten Bible, has claimed that “the diversity and complexity of the materials (so categorized) will not allow it.”57 He understands rewritten Bible in terms of a textual strategy by which biblical texts were expanded and paraphrased, and thus, implicitly commented upon, and this with regard to a plurality of genres. Harrington focuses on a process of rewriting the Bible, which has been continuous from the early history of biblical exegesis through every age to the present. An enlarged approach to biblical rewritings looks for interpretation in literature from earliest re-workings of biblical traditions within the Hebrew Bible, through early Judaism, from Christianity to Middle Ages. In this exegetical milieu, new beginnings are always told in continuation. In this tradition there is no passive reception.58 In modern literary critical theory it is a common assumption that any text is dependent on other texts. This phenomenon is theorized by Julia Kriesteva as intertextuality.59 Gerard Genette theorizes on the same phenomenon and prefers the term of hypertextuality.60 He explains that hypertextuality refers to instances where a given text - the hypertext - is grafted upon another text - the hypotext - from which it derives.61 In Genette’s terminology hypertextuality is one of different intertextual modes in literature. By hypotext I understand the literal under-writing of a palimpsest, which literally is a hypertext. The rewriting literature analysed by Genette as palimpsests are examples in which a hypertext overwrites or reshapes its hypotext (or -texts). By comparison, the particularity of a biblical rewriting is that it is a hypertext dependent on a hypotext from which it originates and without which it would not exist. A commentary explains its relation to its sources by describing and explicitly referring to heuristic value in Bernstein 2005, 196. Alexander questions if the biblical rewritings he studies “constitute a meaningful literary genre.” Alexander 1988, 100. 57 Daniel J. Harrington studies the phenomenon of a textual activity or process in rewritten Bible. Daniel J. Harrington, “Palestinian Adaptations of Biblical Narratives and Prophecies: 1. The Bible Rewritten (Narratives),” in R. A. Kraft and G.W.E. Nickelsburg (eds.), Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press; Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1986), 239-258, 243. 58 Lesleigh Stahlberg, Sustaining Fictions: Intertextuality, Midrash, Translation, and the Literary Afterlife of the Bible, (New York: T & T Clark, 2008) 92-93. 59 Julia Kristeva, Sèmiôtikè: Recherche pour une sémanalyse, (Paris: Seuil, 1969), 84- 85. 60 Rewritten Scripture is comparable to Genette’s notion of “Palimpsests” or “Literature of the second degree,” nevertheless he does not theorize on rewritten Scripture. Genette 1982, 13. 61 “J’appelle donc l’hypertexte tout texte dérivé d’un texte antérieur par transformation simple (nous dirons désormais transformation tout court) ou par transformation indirecte : nous dirons imitation.” Genette 1982, 16. 34 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 it, while the rewriting on the contrary imitates and transforms its hypotext by rewriting it.62

1.1.2. The Discovery of a Textual Strategy When Vermes coined the term rewritten Bible the appellation implied something secondary in authority to the canonical books being rewritten. There is a distinction between Bible and rewritten Bible, which has been revisited since. It is possible to hold a textual process rather than a genre to be constitutive of the works known as rewritten Bible, as long as the process is well-defined. Consequently, a genre definition of rewritten Bible should be reserved for compositions of late Second Temple literature dependent on Scripture that have the distinct relationship to their scriptural Vorlage, characterized by changes such as expansion, addition, and omission. Still, the term of rewritten Bible is necessary to positively describe the discovery of a textual strategy. Hereby it gives the background to a new look on the relationship between the gospels. It furnishes an alternative approach to the question of sources and redaction. The rewriting perspective is studied as part of reception history or Wirkungsgeschichte, which according to Steve Mason have “taught us to view later interpretations as dialogue partners in our efforts to understand the original text.”63 Here we analyse and compare antique texts in order to uncover textual strategies. In his commentary to Matthew, Ulrich Luz has initiated this hermeneutic applied to New Testament studies.64 In Alexander’s discussion of a rewritten Bible text such as Jubilees the analysis is expressed in terms of rewriting. By contrast, most discussion of the synoptic problem is conducted in the language of sources and redaction. Matthew and Luke exhibit intense rewriting of the sort we find in rewritten Bible works, which can be characterized as a textual activity or process. In the case of Matthew’s rewriting of Mark, Jonathan Campbell stresses that

62 Ellen Finkelpearl deals with mimesis in Antiquity and examines the ways in which writers practiced conscious imitation of literary models. Ellen Finkelpearl, “Pagan Traditions of Intertextuality in the Roman World”, in Dennis R. MacDonald (ed.), Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity, (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001), 78-90, 82-84. Paul Ricœur argues from a hermeneutical point of view that historiography shares “a threefold mimesis” with literature in Paul Ricœur, Temps et récit: L’intrigue et le récit historique, (Paris: Seuil, 1983), 105-162. See also Hayden V. White, The Content of the Form, Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, (Baltimore; London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). 63 Steve Mason, Understanding Josephus, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 108. 64 Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7: A Commentary, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 95-99. Chapter 1: Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 35

“we see a rewriting in which a Vorlage remains constitutive for the rewritten entity, though the derived work constitutes a new composition, not a revised edition of its predecessor, and though we can be confident that neither Vorlage nor secondary work were scriptural for author or original audience.”65 There is a parallel between what Vermes discovered and Alexander defined as rewritten Bible, and the rewriting at work in the gospels. Still it is necessary to distinguish these two different levels of understanding, between the genre and the rewriting process. Vermes did not explicitly include the gospels in an understanding of rewritten Bible. As the concept has been studied in the last fifty years and in addition to Vermes’ initial encouragement to study the New Testament in light of rewritten Bible it is relevant for the study of gospel origins. What is common to Jubilees’ treatment of Genesis and, for example, Matthew’s use of Mark is a specific interpretive activity.66 The heuristic evolution of the approach is that the process of rewritten Bible concerns other texts than those described initially by Vermes. To study how one gospel builds upon another is to question the hermeneutic at work inside the text. In this sense, the approach of rewritten Bible is relevant to the synoptic problem.

1.1.3. An Outline of Alexander’s Thesis This subsection focus on what is characteristic of literary rewritings and how an “extended biblical narrative” takes form.67 In his often-cited article “Retelling the Old Testament” published in 1988, Philip Alexander proposes to study the formal literary characteristics of rewritten Bible texts and to define “the rewritten Bible type of text – to establish criteria for admission to, or exclusion from the genre.”68 In order to question if the internal relationship between the gospels have something in common with the internal relationship between Bible and rewritten Bible texts, I shall first list Alexander’s nine criteria. Secondly, the nine criteria will be discussed in relation to gospel writing. Alexander evaluates a rewritten Bible text according to three characteristics: the content it has in common with Scripture, its relationship to Scripture and the “midrashic tradition;” the interpretive

65 Jonathan G. Campbell, “Rewritten Bible: A Terminological Reassessment” in Jozsef Zsengellér (ed.), Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms, or Techniques? (Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2014), 49-81, 72-73. 66 There is an exegetical tradition at work in the gospels, which is comparable to the creative activity of biblical rewritings. 67 Alexander’s point d) in Alexander 1988, 117. 68 Alexander 1988, 99. 36 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 tradition in which it emerged. He describes the distinctive characteristics of a rewritten Bible text through case studies on the text of Jubilees, Genesis Apocryphon, Pseudo-Philo/Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum (LAB) and Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities (Antiquities). He analyses these texts with respect to their form, their attitude towards the authority of the Bible, their use of biblical and non-biblical material, and their exegetical methods.69 The classical example of a rewritten Bible text is Jubilees compared to Genesis and the first chapters of Exodus. In the case of Jubilees, the content and the relation to its source can be assessed, because the Vorlage is known.70 According to Alexander, a rewritten Bible text is an intense rewriting of a sizeable portion of biblical text to which the former remains closely attached in a “centripetal” relationship,71 though following its antecedent with varying degrees of expansion and omission.72 The rewriting remains closely related to its Vorlage throughout. The list of Alexander’s nine criteria in a shortened version is as follows:73

a) “Rewritten Bible texts are narratives, which follow a sequential, chronological order. Their framework is an account of events, and so they may be described broadly as histories. They are not theological treatises, though an account of events may incidentally serve theological ends.” b) “They are, on the face of it, free-standing compositions which replicate the form of the biblical books on which they are based. (…) Unlike rabbinic midrash, the actual words of Scripture do not remain highlighted within the body of the text.” c) “Despite the superficial independence of form, these texts are not intended to replace, or to supersede the Bible.”74

69 Alexander’s stress on the literary aspect of rewritten Bible texts is more relevant to my argument than the attempt to make a genre definition. Alexander 1988, 99-100. 70 Interestingly Chronicles is not treated by Alexander here, but mentioned as “the prototype of all rewritten Bible texts.” Alexander 1988, 100. Inside the Old Testament this text rewrites previous biblical narratives, which are also part of the canon. A parallel can be drawn between Chronicles and the Gospel of Luke, as both texts have Vorlage in the canon. 71 Alexander’s point d) 117. 72 Alexander’s point e) 117. 73 For the entire list see Alexander 1988, 116-118. 74 Alexander’s point c) is problematic. It is difficult to evaluate if the rewriting was intended to replace its source or not. In seldom cases the intention to replace is explicit. In most cases the replacing character of a rewriting is implicit. Chapter 1: Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 37

d) “Rewritten Bible texts cover a substantial portion of the Bible.” They “are centripetal: they come back to the Bible again and again. The rewritten Bible texts make use of legendary material, but by placing that material within an extended biblical narrative.” e) “Rewritten Bible texts follow the Bible serially, in proper order, but they are highly selective in what they present. Some passages are reproduced more or less literally, some are omitted altogether, some abbreviated, some expanded. There are few omissions which would create a serious chronological hiatus, and in the end all the texts contain a reasonably balanced proportion of straightforward retelling and expansion. A proper balance between the ‘literal and the ‘non- literal’ sections is probably of fundamental importance to the genre. f) “The intention of the texts is to produce an interpretative reading of Scripture. (…) They carry on an intense, if silent, dialectic with the original.” g) “The narrative form of the texts means, in effect, that they can impose only a single interpretation on the original.” h) “The limitations of the narrative form also preclude making clear the exegetical reasoning.”75 i) “Rewritten Bible texts make use of non-biblical tradition and draw on non-biblical sources, whether oral or written. (…) In certain cases we can be sure the legendary material pre-existed its incorporation into the texts. By fusing this material with the biblical narrative the rewritten Bible texts appear to be aiming at a synthesis of the whole tradition (both biblical and extra-biblical) within a biblical framework: they seek to unify the tradition on a biblical base.”

The main purpose of Alexander’s study is to list similar literary characteristics in order to define a genre.76 My question is if there is a benefice applying Alexander’s nine criteria to the Gospel of Luke as rewriting of Mark and Matthew. It is problematic and anachronistic to define Luke as rewritten Bible in the narrow sense of Alexander’s four

75 The narrative form conceals the interpretation behind it. Unlike the midrashim, the exegetical reasoning in a biblical rewriting is not made explicit. The interpretation becomes implicit because of the narrative form. It is in this sense that the method of the rewriting is both exegetical and eisegetical. According to Alexander a biblical rewriting “seek to draw out the sense of Scriptures and to solve its problems, and at the same time to read non-biblical material into Scripture, thereby validating it and preventing the fragmentation of the tradition.” Alexander 1988, 118. 76 Crawford, Campbell, Zahn, and S. Docherty refer to Alexander’s criteria. I will not discuss in what degree these criteria are pertinent in studies on Second Temple Literature. 38 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 examples, which belong to literature form Second Temple Judaism, and are posterior to their known source text, the Old Testament. Luke does not rewrite the content in a sustained manner of Scripture, and therefore is not a competing narrative.77 Luke does not share the two first points of resemblances with rewritten Bible on content and relationship to Scripture. It is possible to evaluate if Luke discloses the third point, what Alexander calls a midrashic tradition78 within these text. According to precisely this point, I shall compare all nine characteristics with gospel writing, in order to specify how a gospel narrative makes sustained rewriting of one or more precedent gospels, and not how Luke rewrites the Scripture. The rewriting method of rewritten Bible could be common to Jubilees and the gospel of Luke, while the literary support79 is evidently different. The following analysis of the Baptist portrait in Luke is based upon Alexander’s approach with the reserve I have stated here, and with a specific focus on point e) in Alexander’s list.80 The benefit of Alexander’s model is to list the “literary constraints” to which a biblical rewriting responds. If Luke has literary constraints in common with, for example, Josephus’ Antiquities or LAB in their relation to predecessors, this has consequences on how we read Luke and how we consider Luke’s relation to predecessors. It is my argument that these are different from the constraints presupposed by the 2SH.81 Alexander’s approach discloses a “dynamic tradition”82 behind the early evidence of plurality in biblical rewritings. The rhetorical modifications in the rewriting are not motivated by historical reliability, and therefore rather enlighten the question of creativity. What is the difference between a redactional reworking of predecessors and biblical rewriting? Could this dynamic of tradition enlighten how a specific redactional activity worked in the beginning of the Common Era? I shall refer to the rewriting activity as “rewritten Scripture” following the suggestion of Anders Klostergaard Petersen. He criticizes the term

77 Luke rewrites the content of previous gospels in a sustained manner, and the question is rather if Luke was a concurrent narrative to Mark, Matthew and John before the four gospels were collected in a pre-canonical form. 78 Alexander 1988, 99. 79 An authoritative predecessor is the literary support of a biblical rewriting. 80 The only point cited fully here. 81 I argue that Luke’s description of John the Baptist is creative and dynamic. The portrait is not characterized by a slavish fidelity to sources. Luke construes an alternative Baptist figure. 82 Watson stress that: ”Luke enters into the dynamic of the tradition itself: a tradition seeking to articulate anew the self-communication of the risen Jesus.” Watson 2013, 216. Chapter 1: Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 39 rewritten Bible as anachronistic, while the Second Temple Jews had Scripture not canon, and he proposes rewritten Scripture as a more appropriate term.83 Klostergaard Petersen argues that “Scripture had the additional advantage compared to Bible that it allows us to include writings like Deuteronomy and the books of Chronicles to the category without having to make an artificial distinction between inner-biblical and extra- biblical forms of rewritten Bible.”84 The term moreover includes early Christian writings in which a comparable literary strategy is at work. My preliminary proposition is that the method common to rewritten Scripture texts concerns a larger part of literature until the 1st and beginning of the 2nd century C.E. I shall therefore apply Alexander’s model on Luke as a rewritten Gospel. The Gospel of Luke is rewritten Scripture in the sense that it “overwrites” previous gospels. In Genette’s terminology Luke is a kind of palimpsest, a hypertext rewriting hypotexts. In my analysis of Luke’s introduction to John’s public ministry (Lk 3:1-20) I shall test if Luke followed not one but at least two hypotexts, the Gospels of Mark and Matthew. If we apply Alexander’s model on Luke the criteria to the gospel as rewritten Scripture would be:

1. The Gospel of Luke is a narrative (and not a commentary) a coherent, chronological construed whole.85 2. If there is citation in the gospel narrative from earlier gospels it is hidden in and by the narrative. 3. Despite the resemblances between Matthew and Mark on the one side and Luke on the other, the latter has no intention to replace its predecessors.86 4. Luke rewrites substantial parts of its hypotexts, Mark and Matthew. The result is an extended gospel narrative.

83 In Anders Klostergaard Petersen, “Rewritten Bible as a Borderline Phenomenon – Genre, Textual Strategy, or Canonical Anachronism?” In Anthony Hilhorst, E. Puech, J.C. Tigchelaar and F. G. Florentino, Flores Florentino, Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Early Jewish Studies in Honour of Florentino Garcia Martinez, (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 285-306. He referred to the debate whether the concept “is more adequately conceived of in terms of a genre or in terms of a textual strategy.” Ibid, 285. 84 Klostergaard Petersen 2007, 288. 85 The Gospel of Luke is an example of a biblical rewriting, but not exclusively. The and Luke are the two gospels where the procedure is most detectable, because we can compare with the , and we can alternatively to the 2SH, compare Matthew and Luke. 86 This point is very problematic, as is the point c) in Alexander’s list. 40 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

5. Luke follows its hypotexts serially, in proper order87, but it is highly selective in what it presents. Some passages are reproduced more or less literally, some are omitted altogether, some abbreviated, some expanded. 6. Luke as hypertext produces an interpretative reading of its hypotexts. The rewriting carries on an intense, if silent, dialectic with the original.88 7. Due to the narrative form of the gospel only one single interpretation on the original is possible. The rewriting constitutes an indirect commentary. The dialectic with predecessors is hidden by the narrative form. 8. The narrative form of the gospel is camouflage of the interpretation behind it. The ideological aspect of the rewriting is hidden by the narrative form. 9. Additions of other oral or written sources appear – eventually, but not necessarily.

In order to resume the preceding section, the Gospel of Luke does not belong to the narrow group of rewritten Bible texts which Vermes and Alexander studied as such: A gospel is not comparable to, for example, Jubilees in relation to what characterizes a rewritten Bible text regarding its content compared to the Old Testament text, neither is a gospel comparable to Jubilee’s close relationship to this Old testament text, Genesis. I hold that Luke is rewritten Scripture in relation to how it rewrites the content of Mark and Matthew’s reworking of Mark. Luke moreover shares what Alexander defines as the midrashic tradition of interpretation89 with rewritten Scripture. That is the method by which it rewrites predecessors. I will refer to this method as the literary strategy of rewritten Scripture.

1.2. Gospel Writing in Light of Rewritten Scripture By its narrative form a rewriting can only impose a single interpretation on the original.90 Compared to a commentary, the rewriting does not describe

87 Luke mainly follows Mark’s order. 88 Marcel Proust defines the pastiche as “une critique littéraire en action” (Lettre à P. Dreyfus, 1908) cited by Genette 1982, 17. The pastiche is different from a parody, although both go under Genette’s umbrella category of hypertextuality. It is one particular way of rewriting. The pastiche accentuates the characteristics of a particular text. When an author accentuates elements he makes a critical treatment of the text he is rewriting. The critic made by the rewriting is not theoretical. A rewriting understands, interprets and rewrites all at once. In this sense the rewriting is dynamic. 89 Alexander 1988, 99. 90 Alexander 1988, 117. Chapter 1: Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 41 two contradictory events, for example: John baptizing Jesus and John being in prison at Jesus’ baptism. As a writing reader Luke makes an interpretive choice in his rewriting. In light of Gérard Genette’s study of hypertextuality and rewriting in literature91 I will argue that the synoptic gospels, as well as the Gospel of John can be valued as literary products making creative rewriting of some sort of existing written sources. The argument that they only made use of existent sources and worked as copyists or compilors is excessive. To take the opposite view and consider what we find in only one text as created new traditions would also be excessive. The description of John’s ministry in Luke contains traces of some kind of rewriting. There is reuse of written material at work and also a new theological perspective according to each gospel. The literary and ideological aspects of an alternative Baptist figure in Luke-Acts disclose that Luke will write something “new” grafted on both Mark and Matthew’s reworking of Mark. I shall begin with a brief survey of gospel writing in light of the rewritten Scripture perspective.

1.2.1. Every Reading Involves Classificatory Decisions The canonical gospels differ in content and in their respective interpretation of the Jesus’ story. They do not relate to an original purer account but rather disclose interrelated literary reworking. There is no consensus on the literary relationship between the synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John. Consequently these questions are open for discussion and the strategy of rewritten Scripture can enlighten the debate. This perspective has revealed that the earliest interpreters of the Scriptures radically transformed what we read today as biblical stories. Numerous writers of a formative age of interpretation92 assumed a role as “reading interpreters” transforming their sources into new narratives. James Kugel has studied the influence of this formative age on gospel writers:

When it comes to NT passages that discuss or allude to passages from the HB, one principle cannot be stressed enough. Ancient Jews and Christians not only shared a common body of Scripture; they were also heir to a common body of interpretations that had accompanied that Scripture for centuries, interpretations that go back, in some cases, at least to the period of the return from Babylonian exile in the late sixth century B.C.E.93

91 Genette 1982, 19. 92 From 200 B.C.E. to 100 C.E. is a formative age of interpretation regarding the books of Maccabees, of Josephus and the LAB. 93 James L. Kugel, “Stephen’s Speech () in Its Exegetical Context” in Craig E. Evans (ed.), From Prophecy to Testament: The Function of the Old Testament in the New, (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 206-218, 206. 42 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

I shall assess to what degree this phenomenon is relevant to gospel writing, and if it moreover enlightens an eventual literary relationship between the gospels. Every reading involves classificatory decisions. This means that every reading adheres to a paradigm of comprehension. The 2SH makes it difficult to explore if there could be a direct literary dependency between Matthew and Luke, because it presupposes their independency. Redaction criticism distinguishes a certain degree of liberty and creativity in the gospels’ different versions of the “Jesus story.” This creativity has consequences on how we can imagine that the gospels were written, and therefore the attitude towards sources presupposed by the 2SH is to be reconsidered. The L/M approach is one possible way to explain the similarities between Luke and Matthew, investigating on the gospel of Luke as a rewriting of Matthew.94 One of its main presuppositions is Luke’s literary creativity: that a rewriting in a new theological perspective of the “Jesus-story” is characteristic of the Lukan double work. I shall argue that Luke’s literary strategy, taken as a hypertextual and exegetical, social practice is in continuation with the Second Temple phenomenon of rewritten Scripture. I hold a textual process rather than a genre to be constitutive of the works known as rewritten Scripture, and I will define this process according to Philip Alexander’s definition: An intense rewriting of a sizable portion of biblical text to which the former remains closely attached in a “centripetal” relationship. The rewritten text though following with varying degrees of expansion, addition, or omission, remains closely keyed to its Vorlage throughout.95 I stress the literary aspect of the rewriting in Alexander’s definition in order to investigate on the narrative closeness between Mark, Matthew and Luke. The synoptic gospels contain varying degrees of expansion, addition, and omission, while following the same narrative thread, and hereby fulfil their function as rewritings. A larger view on biblical rewritings permits to approach an instance of reception in the gospels, as it has been very largely assumed for Matthew and Luke as receptions and rewritings of Mark. The New Testament gospels and early Christian apocryphal literature both bear witness to a comparable practice of rewriting authoritative texts and traditions, and the rewriting perspective has made the boundary between canonical and apocryphal more fluent. In light of this perspective the youngest evangelists made narrative development on previous gospels

94 Francis Watson makes a thorough analysis of the compositional procedure at work behind the Lukan rewriting of Matthew and argues that Luke is an interpreter of Matthew, in Watson 2013, 156-157, 217. 95 Alexander 1988, 101. Chapter 1: Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 43 as the result of an exegetical process. The rewriting strategy does not concern New Testament reception of Old Testament motifs, but the rewriting strategy at work from one gospel to another.96 My investigation stresses the way Luke develops both Mark and Matthew on what concerns the character of John the Baptist and his baptism. Compared to Mark’s narrative, Luke and Matthew have changed the character’s patterns of action. While the “original” character offers a baptism “to the forgiveness of sins” (Mk 1:4), Matthew and Luke rewrite the narrative proposition of Mark creatively. This is a deviation from the hypotext which is not convincingly explained by alternative lost sources. Moreover, there are literary aspects in Luke, which are best explained as rewriting of Matthew. Examples of embarrassment and hidden polemics are detectable in this material. I contend that different Baptist portraits disclose a dynamic of tradition rather than a compilation of sources. There still is a need to define how we evaluate literary dependency in this perspective. One can focus on similarities or modifications. Rewritten Scripture works disclose that the latest writing is all at once citing, expanding, omitting and absorbing previous sources. A hypertext both cites and absorbs its sources without mentioning its hypotext. The rewriting cites when it agrees and absorbs by re-contextualization when it disagrees. In this case the result is a new alternative version. I shall demonstrate how Luke’s new description of John’s ministry is dependent upon Matthew’s reworking of Mark. Before this, it is important to distinguish the initial comparison of biblical rewritings from the way this perspective enlightens the study of gospel writing.

1.2.2. The Endurance of Midrashic Tradition The gospels are not traditionally considered from the perspective of rewritten Scripture. When Renée Bloch in the 1950’s encourages studying the New Testament in light of ‘midrash’, it is in their aspect as Christian transformations of the Hebrew Scripture/Jewish Bible.97 Comparing the

96 My approach is different from Eckart Reinmuth’s approach. He compares the “Erzähltechnik” and “Schriftgebrauch” of Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum and Luke/Acts, and he analysis the two works relation to their Vorlage in Septuagint. In Eckart Reinmuth, Pseudo-Philo und Lukas: Studien zum Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum und seiner Bedeutung für die Interpretation des lukanischen Doppelwerks, (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1994). 97 It is to be observed that Bloch anticipates Vermes’ discovery of rewritten Bible in her proposition to study biblical literature in the light of midrash. See Renée Bloch, “Midrash” in Supplément au dictionnaire de la Bible, vol. 5 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1957), 1263-82. Both Bloch and Vermes contributed to the Cahiers Sioniens in the 1950’s. 44 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 gospels and Paul to Second Temple literature interpreting Scriptures is one thing, another is to compare Jubilee’s attitude to Genesis with Matthew’s attitude to his source(s) while rewriting Mark. Rewritten Scripture is one specific kind of literary dependence on Scripture, and the term should not become an all-encompassing term. It should rather enable us to distinguish between different kinds of dependence on the Scripture. According to Geza Vermes, Philip Alexander and Moshe Bernstein, the works defined as rewritten Bible must interpretatively rewrite their Vorlagen in a substantial and sustained matter. New Testament exegetes have tested an eventual literary dependency between Matthew and Luke in the perspective of rewritings, with focus on literary and ideological aspects of rewriting in Luke. In 1989, proposes to develop Farrer’s approach on Luke as a reader of Matthew.98 This work follows his investigation on midrash in Matthew. The latter was criticised because of its combination with the hypothesis.99 John Drury proposes to read Luke as rewritten Matthew with stress on the notion of design in Luke’s gospel, considering that Luke’s transformation of sources is influenced by how early Christians wrote history.100 He considers that Luke had inherited something comparable to a deuteronomistic attitude to biblical sources, permitting Luke-Acts to be a new theological perspective on at least Mark and Matthew. Francis Watson focuses on Luke the Interpreter without at all mentioning the rewritten Scripture perspective, presenting a thorough analysis and investigation of Lukan rewriting of Matthew.101 In the acts from the 2011 conference on rewritten Bible, Klostergaard Petersen encourages an approach to the gospels in this perspective. He argues that the New Testament gospels like rewritten Scripture “exemplify texts which not only closely follow their base text in terms of structure but also share the constitutive element of the category, namely the rewriting of authoritative predecessors without any explicit commenting on the intertextual relationship between the two.”102 The example illustrating this process is

98 Goulder 1989, 22. Austin M. Farrer, “On Dispensing with Q” in Dennis E. Nineham (ed.), Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R.H. Lightfoot. (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1955), 55-88. 99 Michael D. Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew: The Speaker’s Lectures in Biblical Studies, (London: SPCK, 1974). 100 “To be thoroughly historical we still need to study the gospels in their matrix of contemporary theological story-writing.” Drury 1976, 44. 101 Watson 2013. 102 Klostergaard Petersen, “Textual Fidelity, Elaboration, Supersession or Encroachment? Typological Reflections on the Phenomenon of Rewritten Scripture” in Zsengellér (ed.) 2014, 13-48, 35. Chapter 1: Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 45

Matthew as an extended version of Mark’s Gospel. A major part of Mark seems incorporated in the work of Matthew. One can discuss to what degree Mark can be considered an authoritative predecessor. As a premise of my investigation I consider Mark as a hypotext, Matthew as a hypertext of Mark, and Luke as a hypertext of both Mark and of Matthew’s reworking of Mark. In the synoptic gospels’ different descriptions of John’s ministry I will study the literary aspect of the Lukan rewriting, which is characterised by adapted, rejected and reserved material compared to Matthew.103 The proposed rewriting perspective concerns words and sentences, and figures like John the Baptist, which are adapted, omitted or added in a new narrative context. The perspective moreover analyses narrative anticipations, such as John’s imprisonment, which are important changes in the rewritten narrative. This approach is not a pure narrative- critical approach ignoring the diachronic questions which bind textual meaning to origination. While presenting the L/M hypothesis Watson does not compare Luke’s textual strategy to biblical rewritings in a historical perspective. Still his focus is on the interpretation at work in the gospels transmitted in a construed canon: “The “real”, historically- and theologically-significant Jesus cannot be detached from the process of reception that reaches its telos in the canonical gospel narratives (…) The process of event and reception is inescapably diachronic (…) Reception occurs in large part through the active shaping of what is received in the work of interpretation.”104 In light of the presupposition that the evangelist reshapes a given narrative, I intend to question if John’s ministry has been creatively reshaped by Luke-Acts without any excessive binding to sources presupposed by source-critical hypothesis, but rather with a liberty of interpretation characteristic of antique rewritings. To what extent is Luke’s literary strategy comparable to the process of “rewriting the Bible”? The gospel of Luke employs a hypertextual strategy comparable with rewritten Scripture. Luke is a rewriting of previous gospels (Lk 1:1-4) as it is a reading and a reception of these. Consequently it is important to distinguish between a pre-canonical state of the text, and a post canonical-state. The latter is observed through a canon-oriented view of the reception process, and thus it is a retrospective reconstruction making a limit between authentic and unauthentic texts among gospel literature. To consider a pre-canonical state of this literature is to recognise that “individual gospels predate the decision that makes them “canonical”

103 Watson 2013, 158-159. 104 Watson 2013, 157. 46 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 or “noncanonical”” as Watson formulates it.105 A pre-canonical state of the text is not taken sufficiently into consideration by the quest of a lost source. The evangelist behind Luke must have been acquainted with the tradition of Bible interpretation current in his days. What is added about John the Baptist compared to Mark and Matthew is probably not entirely his own invention, but a recasting serving the overall theological framework of Luke’s writing, comparable with how other biblical figures have been “amplified” in rewritten Scripture texts. This is for instance the case in works like Josephus’ Antiquities, which marks a tendency to embroider the details of figures found in the Scriptures.

1.3. Concluding remarks The aim of the following analysis is not to demonstrate if Luke retells the entire Matthean Gospel, rather is my focus on the Baptist figure a test case in order to evaluate Luke’s detailed treatment of predecessors. The entire structure of the Gospel discloses a narrative strategy. My analysis tends to demonstrate that this strategy is characterized by a creative adaption of sources with deliberate omissions and additions from the author’s hand. The present work is not focused on text-critical details and the complex history of manuscripts. I approach the Gospel of Luke thematically and I read it as a transmitted text tradition: How does the evangelist behind Luke take position compared to his predecessors in rendering an alternative gospel? We simply cannot presuppose that Luke only knew Mark and had no knowledge of the Gospels of Matthew and John. The presuppositions of the 2SH blur the eventual literary access that Luke could have had to Matthew. This is why the following analysis will sketch the main ideas in studies on the synoptic problem, and briefly outline the text chosen in Luke to examine an eventual literary dependency and creative reworking. As suggested in chapter 1.2.2, Luke differs from a rewritten Scripture text on the point that it does not rewrite an entire narrative portion of the Hebrew Bible. Luke rewrites a gospel narrative. What Luke has in common with rewritten Scripture is the midrashic mode of interpretation and the strategy of rewriting a narrative which has a certain status. The term midrashic has been used by Bloch,106 Vermes and Alexander. I prefer the notion of a literary strategy common to rewritten Scripture. The value of integrating this concept into New Testament study is the specific approach to an exegetical process behind a literary and theological rewriting, while Vermes’ and Alexander’s language of rewritten Bible as a genre definition

105 Watson 2013, 217. 106 Bloch argues that the gospels develop their sources narratively in a way comparable to what she defines as the midrashic tradition. In Bloch 1957, 1263-82, 1281. Chapter 1: Introducing the Perspective of Rewritten Bible 47 not is adapted to characterize the gospels. Applying Alexander’s model on Bible – rewritten Bible as a method to understand the literary constraints of a biblical rewriting, can be a point of departure for a reading of Luke as a rewriting of both the Gospel of Mark and Matthew. I propose to distinguish between Matthew and Luke as the hypo- and hypertext in Genette’s terminology.107 In this approach it makes a difference if we presuppose a Lukan compilation or a rewriting of its hypotext. We have not discovered new gospel sources. Nevertheless, we have discovered with Vermes the phenomenon of rewriting Scripture, which is a constitutive element of Second Temple literature and which enlightens the interpretive activity behind gospel writing. There probably is both compilation and rewriting in Luke’s use of sources. We can define the result of the rewriting process as follows: the hypotext remains dominant for the hypertext’s structure and flow, while the latter is no mere revised edition of its predecessor but a distinct new composition. In chapter 4, I will test this presupposition on Luke’s description of John the Baptist in Luke-Acts. Before this in the following subsection, I shall discuss if the strategy of rewritten Scripture is relevant to the synoptic problem.

107 In a definition of the rewritten Bible’ process Campbell deals with the term of Vorlage in Campbell 2014, 68. In order to avoid the rewritten Bible language stressing the term Vorlage, the term hypotext from Genette’s terminology can be applied on Mark and Matthew in the L/M approach.

Chapter 2 The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation

2.1. Introductory This chapter explores the relation between gospel writing and gospel interpretation. It examines if the latter succeeds the former or if both have developed in an interrelated dynamic. If Luke can be said to follow a rewritten Scripture strategy, this perspective demands a study of literary dependency in gospel writing. The chapter introduces research on the synoptic problem which offers different responses to the question of literary dependency between Matthew and Luke. Additionally, the chapter examines the hypothesis that Luke rewrites Matthew within a new perspective on how a gospel emerges from its predecessors.

2.1.1. Survey of Two Models This section sketches out the L/M hypothesis108 and compares it to the 2SH. These are two of multiple models concerned with the interrelationship between Matthew and Luke. Defenders of the first model argue that Luke is a rewriting of both Mark and Matthew. If an analysis of the Baptist portrait in Luke-Acts confirms an interpretive process behind Luke in relation to Matthew, this will constitute an alternative approach to the synoptic problem. It will also disclose a problem behind the synoptic problem: that the author of Luke’s Gospel should have modified the Gospel of Matthew without staying faithful to a range of theological points found only in Matthew. In contrast, the 2SH studies the relationships among the gospels and reads Matthew and Luke as independent compilations of Mark and a lost ‘saying’ source, Q. As mentioned above the rewriting strategy contains a technique of harmonization. I shall argue that there are harmonizing tendencies in Luke’s gospel. Such tendencies are part of the narrative strategy in ancient historiography. According to Vermes, biblical rewritings cover a technique of harmonization.109 This is one value of the perspective for the history of biblical interpretation. In the 16th century there was a spurt of gospel harmonies, which was made possible by the printing press. Davis L. Dungan traces the different currents in the approach to the synoptic gospels

108 The L/M hypothesis is alternatively called the Farrer-, the Mark without Q-, or Farrer-Goulder hypothesis. 109 In Vermes’ revised edition of Schürer 1986, 326. 50 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 through history.110 He distinguishes three main attitudes toward scriptural veracity in the gospels through three different stages in the evolution of the synoptic problem. He opposes a harmonizing and a synoptic reading of the gospels and argues that the initial concern of a was to “protect the Gospels’ credibility by removing inconsistencies and describe Christ’s life in one continuous narrative.”111 Often we refer to Tatian as the earliest gospel harmony.112 I contend that literary and theological aspects are harmonized in Luke through an interpretive process. How Luke changes previous renderings on John the Baptist in a harmonizing way shall therefore be treated in the forthcoming analysis. A synopsis is by comparison an artificial and schematic model.113 There is an opposition between a synopsis and a gospel harmony. Dungan has argued that the quest of the modern era for objective scientific knowledge “caused the demise of the Gospel harmony and led directly to the invention of the Gospel synopsis, an instrument intended to facilitate the objective investigation of the differences among the Gospels.”114 The 2SH takes it’s out-spring in this instrument and focuses on what could have been behind the texts. The L/M hypothesis focuses on succeeding gospel narratives, which appeared at different stages in history. The synopsis tends toward a synchronical reading. The focus however on the data of scribal and hermeneutical practices in the 1st and 2nd century CE introduces a more diachronical perspective on the synoptic gospels.

110 Davis L. Dungan, A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text, the Composition, and the Interpretation of the Gospels, (New York; London; Toronto: Doubleday, 1999). 111 Dungan 1999, 305. 112 Tatian, Diatessaron: It’s Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship, (ed. and trans. William Petersen) Leiden; New York: Brill, 1994. refers to Tatian’s composition as “a combination and collection of the gospels.” Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History I (ed. and trans. Kirsopp Lake) LCL 153. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press, 1926, 397. 113 There have been made comparing readings of the Gospels since Eusebius, but these are too harmonizing to be called synopses. The first critical synopsis is established by Griesbach in the end of the 18th century. Johann Jakob Griesbach published his synopsis as a part of the first edition of his Greek New Testament, Libri N.T. historici, Halle, 1774. He republished this synopsis separately as Synopsis Evangeliorum Matthaei Marci et Lucae una cum iis Joannis pericopis quae omnino cum caeterorum Evangelistarum narrationibus conferendae sunt, Halle: 3rd ed. 1809. Griesbach argued that Mark was dependent on both Matthew and Luke. His synoptic reading of the gospels was a model to end harmonization. Those who followed his model would not seek to reconcile the gospels, but rather look for direct literary dependence, or of indirect literary dependence through mutual use of earlier lost sources. 114 Dungan 1999, 308. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 51

Therefore the L/M hypothesis does not share the synchronical presupposition of the synoptic problem. From the argument that a harmonization is the opposite of a synopsis, the following subsection discusses if the L/M hypothesis is an alternative to the 2SH or rather to the synoptic problem. A harmonization can be pre-canonical, whereas a synopsis necessarily is a post-canonical product. Studying Luke as a harmonization is to understand textual fluidity before the . There is no synoptic problem before the canonization. There is a problem of divergent narratives if one takes the gospel’s renderings as historical. The Gospel of Luke could have been written at a later stage than Matthew.115 It could have harmonized divergent versions of Jesus’ story. Later on the early church selected four gospels to be part of a collection.116 Hereafter harmonization becomes only possible outside the canon. From the moment where there is access to four versions, a new hermeneutical attitude is requested. In light of this, the synoptic problem is post- canonical. There were different ways to deal with divergent renderings. The harmonization tends to make one coherent rendering, whereas the elaboration of a fourfold gospel canon resists harmonizing tendencies.117 The 2SH presupposes that the evangelist behind Luke was in a post- canonical attitude which made it impossible to modify a single word of Matthew’s gospel. Historical evidence of divergent gospels including later apocryphal gospels speaks against that Matthew contrary to Mark should have been untouchable.118 This is why I distinguish between harmonizing tendencies in gospel writing and the later synoptic problem. Both harmonization and the canonization process deal with the problem of divergent narratives on nascent Christianity but they do it in different ways. Luke belongs to an exegetical milieu practising harmonizing and rewriting procedures. The hermeneutical question concerning these procedures is not

115 See 3.1.2. 116 For an introduction to the formation of the New Testament canon see Gabriella Aragione, Eric Junod, and Enrico Norelli, Le canon du Nouveau Testament: regards nouveaux sur l’histoire de sa formation, (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2005). 117 The choices of Marcion adapting only Luke, and Tatian harmonizing four gospels, aim to replace the plurality of gospels by one. and the fragment of Muratori defend a legitimate collection of four renderings giving access to one teaching. Aragione 2005, 112-113. Kurt and Barbara Aland describe the New Testament texts before Irenaeus as freischwebend; they refer to Irenaeus’ time as the moment when Christians became Textbewusst. Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, Der Text des Neuen Testaments. Einführung in die wissenschaftlichen Ausgaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik, (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1982), 64. 118 See 7.3.1. 52 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 taken into consideration in the classical approach to synoptic relationships which I shall sketch in the following subsection.

2.1.2. Eight Points Sustaining Synoptic Relationships Studies in the synoptic problem have traditionally aimed at explaining the relationship between the gospels.119 Another more recent aim has been to know the earliest form of a given gospel passage.120 Griesbach‘s gospel synopsis was the first critical synopsis.121 The following model stresses agreements and disagreements between Mark, Matthew and Luke. This method of comparing is at the root of the 2SH. It does not focus on the study of the literary relationship among the gospels neither on a creative process behind such relation.

119 For an introduction to the synoptic problem sketching the history of the scholarly debate see Paul Foster, A. Gregory, J.S. Kloppenborg, J. Verheyden (eds.) New Studies in the Synoptic Problem (Leuven; Paris, Walpole: Peeters, 2011), 9-156; E.P. Sanders and Margaret Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels, (London: SCM Press, 1996); Dungan, 1999; T. R. W. Longstaff and P. Thomas The Synoptic Problem: A Bibliography, 1716-1988, New Gospel Studies 4 (Leuven: Peeters; Macon: Mercer University Press, 1988). 120 The quest for an un-interpreted source takes its beginning in the end of the 18th century when Lessing developed Reimarus’ thesis about a written Ur-Gospel in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, “Neue Hypothese über die Evangelisten als bloss menschliche Geschichtsschreiber betrachtet,” Theologischer Nachlass, Berlin, 1784 (1978), 45-72 (In English translation by Henry Chadwick in Lessing’s Theological Writings (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957); “New Hypothesis Concerning the Evangelists Regarded as Merely Human Historians.” Johann Gottfried Eichhorn argued for an alternative Ur-Gospel hypothesis in Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, J. G. Eichhorn’s kritische Schriften. 5, Einleitung in das Neue Testament. Erster Band, (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1804). In 1964 William Farmer argued that Lessing’s initial reconstruction of a lost source has influenced “every subsequent development in the history of the Synoptic Problem,” in William R. Farmer, The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis, (New York: Macmillian, 1964), 5. Farmer stresses “with Lessing’s hypothesis, scholars were provided with an explanation of the reasons why the canonical Evangelists, who frequently agreed verbatim, sometimes differed from one another. Because on this hypothesis each Evangelist could be thought of as following faithfully an apostolic model preserved in the particular modified form of the original Nazarene Gospel available to him.” Ibid, 6. 121 Libri historici Novi Testamenti Graece. Pars prior, sistens synopsin Evangeliorum Matthae, Marci et Lucae, (Halle 1774); cf. Synopsis Evangeliorum Matthaei, Marci et Lucae, (Halle 1776). See Heinrich Greeven, ”The Gospel Synopsis from 1776 to the Present Day” in B. Orchard and T. R. W. Longstaff (eds.), J.J. Griesbach: Synoptic and Text-Critical Studies 1776-1976, (Cambridge; London: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 22-49. Dungan outlines Griesbach’s hermeneutical methodology in Dungan 1999, 307-326. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 53

In their introduction to different readings of the synoptic gospels E. P. Sanders and Margaret Davies list eight points that stand out as facts about synoptic relationships:122

1. The same passages often appear in all three synoptics. These passages constitute the triple tradition. 2. In the triple tradition all three synoptics often agree in the placement of the material. When all three do not agree, Mark’s arrangement is supported by either Matthew or Luke (…) 3. With regard to substance, about 90% of Mark is also found in Matthew and more than 50% also in Luke (…) 4. In the triple tradition, beside verbatim agreements among all three, there are substantial agreements between Matthew and Mark against Luke, and between Mark and Luke against Matthew, but relatively few agreements between Luke and Matthew against Mark in triple tradition (…) when either Matthew or Luke disagrees with Mark, the other agrees. 5. (…)Agreement between Matthew and Luke begins were Mark begins and ends where Mark ends. Matthew and Luke have narratives in common, which are not told by Mark, and in which they do not agree with each other (like birth narratives and resurrection accounts after the discovery of the ).123 6. (…) In the triple tradition, Mark is the middle term.124 It is closer to both Matthew and Luke than they are to each other (…) 7. Matthew and Luke have in common a good deal of material which is not in Mark, approximately 200 verses. This material is called the double tradition. 8. The material in the double tradition is not arranged in the same way in the two gospels.

According to the eighth point it is uncertain if the original order of the double tradition is to be found in Matthew or in Luke. When the 2SH stresses the problem of order it presupposes an independence of the two

122 The eight points are cited from Sanders and Davies 1996, 53-54. 123 Sanders and Davies argue that “This points to independent copying of Mark by Matthew and Luke.” Sanders and Davies 1996, 62. 124 David Dungan argues “that the two most commonly used synopses-Huck and Aland- were biased toward the Two Source Hypothesis in their presentation of the synoptic parallels.” He suggests that it is not possible “to create a synopsis that is neutral with respect to all source theories.” See Dungan 1999, 379. See also Bernard Orchard, “Are all Gospel Synopses Biased?” ThZ 34 (1978), 149-162. 54 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 texts. An alternative approach is to assess if the original form is in Matthew or in Luke. Therefore the term of a double tradition is already a product of the 2SH, because “tradition” refers to something that circulated or was stored before the redaction. Sanders and Davies stress “Whatever the reasons, the synoptics are so close to one another that virtually all students of them concluded that the relationship depends on direct literary copying from one gospel to another, or from common sources.”125 The writers of the early church, such as Papias126 and Irenaeus,127 are external historical evidence for the reception of the gospels.128 These references predate the earliest gospel manuscripts, which are from the end of the 3rd century CE. It is useful to distinguish between writing and reception, although in the period when the canonical gospels were redacted129 both a process of writing and reception found place. From the moment when Papias and Irenaeus comment on the relationship between the gospels, they enter an era of reception questioning the relationship. In parallel with their questioning apocryphal gospels continue the creative process of “receiving while writing.” Historical evidence concerns the question of data. Stefan Alkier has recently argued that the synoptic problem is not a datum about the canonical Gospels. Rather it witnesses of a specific moment in the history of biblical scholarship.130 He argues that “only the actual details of the Gospels themselves can be accepted as data.”131 Scholars shall not accept and work with particular solutions to the synoptic problem as if they were themselves data. Alkier mentions three of these solutions as assumptions:

125 Sanders and Davies 1996, 51. 126 Eusèbe, Histoire ecclésiastique III, 39, 4-16. Ed. and trans. Yves Germain and Emile Grapin (Clermont-Ferrand: Paléo, 2012). 127 Irénée, Adversus Haereses: Contre les hérésies III, 9,1-11,7. Ed. and trans. Adelin Rousseau and L. Doutreleau, (Paris: Cerf, 1998). 128 Sanders and Davies stress that Papias was first to be “conscious of the individual characteristics of the gospels or collections he knew. Mark wrote an account, though not necessarily in the right order. Matthew collected sayings, but different people interpreted them differently. Irenaeus was highly conscious of the distinctive characteristics of the various gospels and thought that in order to have a full and accurate picture all four accounts should be used.” Sanders and Davies 1996, 24. 129 Which can be estimated to be from 70-140 C.E. 130 To be published, Stefan Alkier ”Opaque Sources: Some Theses culled from Reflections on the Historical Genesis and Development of the Synoptic Problem.” Lecture at the conference in Roskilde “Gospel Interpretation and the Q Hypothesis” in June 2015. 131 Alkier 2015, point 7. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 55

“Mark is the oldest Gospel”, “the minor agreements” and “Q”.132 I contend that a renewed approach shall suspend these propositions and focus on the gospels. The verbal and syntactical agreements between Matthew, Mark and Luke indicate literary dependence of some kind, while Q is a misleading assumption. No patristic testimony mentions Q. A critical approach demands a more objective description of the material common to Matthew and Luke. Either one gospel writer has used the previous as a source, or both have rewritten a common lost source. This is why all attempts to answer the synoptic problem either deal with literary dependence or some kind of use of sources. Some hypotheses stress dependence between the synoptic gospels themselves (focus on the written gospels that has been transmitted, the Griesbach hypothesis).133 Others deal with some kind of extra-synoptic sources (only what is behind is original, the “Traditionshypothese”).134 A third category of hypotheses deals with a combination of these two, where dependence between the gospels and on extra-synoptic sources is taken into consideration, (Matthean and Lukan dependence on known Mark and unknown Q).135 The L/M hypothesis puts direct literary dependence between Matthew and Luke into question but it does not exclude extra-synoptic sources. It argues that the form of a logia source not is available to us, and excludes the possibility of reconstructing such a source. In John S. Kloppenborg’s response to the case for the Farrer or “Mark-without-Q” hypothesis he stresses that the two main points in the synoptic problem are the questions of agreements and disagreements in wording and of relation between the gospels:

132 Alkier 2015, 1. 133 Griesbach 1809. 134 See Fitzmyer’s introduction to the synoptic problem in his commentary on the Gospel of Luke. Fitzmyer 1981, 63. He refers to a Traditionshypothese introduced by Alfred Wikenhauser and J. Schmid, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, (Freiburg, Basel, Wien: Herder, 1973), 276-277. Weisse turned the 2SH of his time against the oral hypothesis, or Traditionshypothese as he also called it. Christian Hermann Weisse, Die Evangelische Geschichte kritisch und philosophisch bearbeitet, 2. vols., (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1838) vol. 1, 1-138; cited by Watson 2013, 108. 135 Sanders and Davies refer to Marie-Emile Boismard as belonging to the first and Goulder to the second category: “The solutions proposed by Goulder and Boismard are especially worth considering in general terms. They stand opposite poles on an important question: the use of sources and the degree of free composition. Boismard sees our evangelists and their immediate predecessors (the editors of the intermediate redactions) as basically conflators, not authors. Goulder sees Matthew and Luke especially as authors, able to write excellent material, especially parables and ethical teaching.” In Sanders and Davies 1989, 112. See Marie-Emile Boismard, Comment Luc a remanié l’Evangile de Jean, (Paris : J. Gabalda, 2001). 56 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Solutions to the Synoptic Problem must of necessity iterate between the consideration of the gross patterns of agreements and disagreements in wording and sequence among the three Synoptics, and the consideration of the local issues of whether and how one can imagine the specific transformations of one gospel by another.136

I assess that Farrer and Goulder’s critique of Q has been taken into consideration, when Kloppenborg recognizes the problem of literary dependence. He recognizes the eventual transformation of one gospel by another, and not exclusively Matthean and Lukan transformations of a lost source. He appeals to the imagination concerning the problem of dependence, while he presupposes that there is a direct access to evaluate agreements and disagreements. Hereby he suggests that the 2SH is on solid ground while an approach as the L/M hypothesis is more speculative. I argue that a study of Luke as a rewriting of Matthew is possible without primarily proving the non-existence of Q. My analysis in part II demonstrates that some examples of specific double tradition material is better explained by the L/M hypothesis than by the 2SH. The hermeneutical situation of gospel writing predates a synoptic problem, and the present dissertation discusses what kind of text Luke is when it is redacted. Is it characterized by fidelity or rather by fluidity compared to its contemporary texts?

2.1.3. The Hypothesis of a Lost Source It is impossible to introduce the origin and the evolution of the Q- hypothesis shortly. This subsection will therefore be selective in the presentation of Q research, which has been extending on every side for more than 150 years. The recent contribution from the Oxford Conference in 2008 on New Studies in the Synoptic Problem presents a nuanced panorama of main groups of responses to the synoptic problem, where the question of Q or not Q is omnipresent, but the work lacks an introduction to Q’s genesis. I shall therefor refer to Harry T. Fleddermann137 who traces the evolution of Q research and presents Johann Gottfried Eichhorn,138

136 John S. Kloppenborg, “The Farrer/Mark without Q Hypothesis: A Response” in J. Poirier and J. Peterson (eds.), Marcan Priority without Q: explorations in the Farrer hypothesis, (London; New York: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2015), 226-244, 226. 137 Harry T. Fleddermann, Q: A Reconstruction and Commentary, (Leuven, Paris, Dudley, Mass.: Peeters, 2005). 138 Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, J. G. Eichhorn’s kritische Schriften. 5, Einleitung in das Neue Testament. Erster Band, (Leipzig: Weidmann, 1804). Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 57

Heinrich Julius Holtzmann139 and Adolf Harnack140 as milestones in the development of the hypothesis. J.G. Eichhorn’s model from 1804 includes thirteen stages in the relationships of sources. Fleddermann describes Eichhorn’s solution as complex, while it has set important parameters for the further discussion. In Fleddermann’s view, Eichhorn has demonstrated the importance of an internal analysis of the texts “apart from external authority like that of Papias.”141 He argues: “The close verbal similarities of Matthew and Luke in the texts they have in common (apart from the triple tradition) demand a written source”142 since Eichhorn has demonstrated that Matthew and Luke did not use each other. Hereby Fleddermann stresses the main assumption in Q research that the independence between the two gospels has been proved. Eichhorn postulates an original gospel (designated by the Hebrew letter alef) to explain the triple tradition. After Eichhorn, Friedrich Schleiermacher presents a new interpretation of Papias’ statement on Matthew in 1832.143 He renews the discussion of the source of the sayings material in the first gospel. While he introduces the thesis of ta logia: (which is “gospel” according to Papias), Schleiermacher contrasts ta logia as “oracles” 144 versus hermeneia “to interprete”.145 Nearly contemporary to

139 Heinrich Julius Holtzmann, Die synoptischen Evangelien: ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter, (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1863). 140 Adolf Harnack, The Sayings of Jesus: The Second Source of St Matthew and St. Luke, (London; New York: Williams & Norgate, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908). Originally Sprüche und Reden Jesu, die zweite Quelle des Matthäus und Lukas, (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1907). 141 Fleddermann 2005, 7. 142 Fleddermann 2005, 7. 143 Friedrich D. E. Schleiermacher, “Über die Zeugnisse des Papias von unsern beiden ersten Evangelien” Theologische Studien und Kritiken 5/4, (1832), 735-68. 144 In a recent critic of the Q hypothesis James Edwards argues: “There is no testimony in the early centuries of Christianity to an early “collection of sayings” (Reden) as imagined by Schleiermacher (…)Schleiermacher quotes two occurrences - one in Justin and one in Photius – where τὰ λόγια clearly means “Gospel” in early Christian literature, but he rejects that meaning in favor of “a collection of sayings” (Reden), which he defends on the basis of Acts 7:38 and Rom 3:2.” James R. Edwards, The Hebrew Gospel & the Development of the Synoptic Tradition, (Grand Rapids (Mich.): Eerdmans, 2009), 242. 145 Schleiermacher 1832, 741-42. Watson argues that “Schleiermacher’s hypothesis reflects contemporary interest in the oral factor in gospel origins, in reaction against the exclusively literary theories of Griesbach on the one hand and Eichhorn on the other. His interpretation of Papias’s statement about Matthew and the λόγια is taken up by Christian Hermann Weisse in 1838 and extended into a “two-source theory” according to which Matthew and Luke both used Mark on the one hand and Q on the other in the composition of their gospels – “Q” now representing not an exclusively Matthean 58 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 this Christian Hermann Weisse distinguishes in 1838 between an apostolic source and the Gospel of Mark.146 In his view these were two of Matthew and Luke’s sources. In 1863 Holtzmann proposes a modified version of Weisse’s hypothesis. He distinguishes between two main gospel sources Urmarcus (Quelle A)147 and Urmatthäus (Quelle Λ).148 Fleddermann argues that Holtzmann’s work causes most scholars to accept the two- source theory.149 In the end of the nineteenth century British scholars approach the synoptic problem in a new way, although they depend on German scholarship. J. C. Hawkins,150 William Sanday,151 and Burnett H. Streeter152 produce their contributions to what they define as the “Two-Document Hypothesis.”153 Hawkins adopts the statistical method. He aims to find the

sayings collection but the non-Markan material common to both Matthew and Luke.” In Watson 2013, 107-108. See Weisse 1838, 1-138. See also Fleddermann 2005, 9. 146 Weisse 1838. 147 On ”Der Quelle A, der ersten Quelle” Holtzmann 1863, 67-102. 148 On “Die zweite Hauptquelle” in Holtzmann 1863, 126-157. 149 Holtzmann makes an overview of special material in Matthew and Luke in two columns: “Eigenthümlichkeiten des Matthäus” distinguished from “Eigenthümlichkeiten des Lucas” in Holtzmann 1863, 158-161. He separates the two genealogies and birth narratives as particular material, although both gospels contain and treat both themes. Also the ethical preaching of Luke in Lk 3:10-14 is presented as special material by Holtzmann, although it is an addition to the previous material shared only by Matthew and Luke in Mt 3:7b-10 and Lk 3:7-9. From the way Holtzmann separates their material he also introduces the hypothesis of two distinct sources behind special material M and special material L, ibid, 157-168. 150 John C. Hawkins, Horae Synopticae: Contributions to the Study of the Synoptic Problem, (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1899). 151 William Sanday (ed.), Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem, (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1911). 152 Burnett H. Streeter The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins Treating of the Manuscript Tradition, Sources, Authorship, and Dates, (London: Macmillan, 1924). 153 These scholars held a seminar in Oxford from 1894 where the subject of study was the synoptic problem. They elaborated a definition of the 2DH as a response to the synoptic problem: “We assume that the marked resemblances between the first Three Gospels are due to the use of common documents, and that the fundamental documents are two in number; (1) a complete Gospel practically identical with our St. Mark, which was used by the Evangelists whom we know as St Matthew and St. Luke; and (2) a collection consisting mainly but not entirely of discourses, which may perhaps have been known to, but was probably not systematically used by St. Mark, but which supplied the groundwork of certain common matter in St Matthew and St. Luke.” Sanday 1911, 3. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 59 characteristic words and phrases of each of the synoptic gospels154 and he argues that Q was a written document.155 W. Sanday approaches the form and content of a written Q as a collection of sayings, and speculates on additional material from Matthew and Luke, that in his view might go back to Q.156 In 1907 Harnack moves Q studies forward by producing the first reconstruction of the Greek text of Q.157 He argues that Q was older and more original than the canonical gospels158 and discusses Q’s literary and formal characteristics.159 Harnack also concludes that Matthew preserved the original form of the Q,160 while Luke had introduced stylistic improvements.161 Hereby he maintains the premise that they were two independent gospels, and that their common sequences attest a double tradition. In 1924 Streeter consolidates the focus on priority of Mark and existence of Q. He argues that the Sondergut of Matthew and Luke goes back to written sources that he labels M and L. He further maintaines that Q and L have been combined in a proto-Luke that Luke combined with Mark. Streeter’s main argument for Q concerns the order of Matthean and Lukan common material: “Subsequent to the Temptation story, there is not a single case in which Matthew and Luke agree in inserting the same saying at the same point in the Marcan outline.”162 Drury’s thesis from 1976

154 John C. Hawkins on “Probabilities as to the so-called double tradition of St. Matthew and St. Luke” in William Sanday (ed.), Studies in the Synoptic Problem, (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1911), 113-118. 155 John C. Hawkins “Probabilities as to the so-called double tradition of St. Matthew and St. Luke,” in Sanday 1911, 98. 156 Sanday 1911, 4. 157 The Greek texts of Q in Harnack 1907, 88-102. Harnack offers a translation in German of the reconstructed Q in Harnack 1907, 175-188. 158 Harnack 1907, 170-174. 159 Harnack 1907, 102-121. 160 Harnack makes an example of Matthew 11:25-27 and :21-22, in Harnack 1907, 189-191. 161 Harnack refers to Mt 3:7-12 and Luke 3: 7-9,17 and argues : Die wenigen Varianten erklären sich leicht; fast überall erscheint Lukas als der, welcher den ursprünglichen Text geändert hat.” Harnack 1907, 7. And “Die Varianten bei Lukas, soweit sie stilistischer Art sind, erscheinen durchweg als secundäre (stilistische Korrekturen).” Ibid, 9. 162 Streeter 1924, 183. This point is important to my analysis. Precisely in the opening scene of Mark’s gospel (on John the Baptist’s public ministry and on the temptations of Jesus), Matthew and Luke agree against Mark in the same order. The fact that the Lukan and Matthean accounts on the Baptist are preceded by infancy narratives contradicts Streeter’s argument. For a thorough critic of Streeter’s argument see Watson 2013, 174- 184. 60 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 supposed that Matthew’s gospel was Luke’s second source after Mark.163 He criticised Streeter’s presuppositions, which are ignoring the multiple agreements between Matthew and Luke not explainable by a common lost source:

Attention has always been diverted from the fact that from the preaching of John (Mt 3:7; Lk 3:7) to the end of the temptations (Mt 4:11; Lk 4:13), Matthew and Luke present much common non-Markan material in the same order. Streeter’s famous knock-down argument for Q acknowledges this only to ignore it.164

The Q research continues despite the incoherence of Streeter’s argument and despite Eichhorn’s initial error to presuppose and establish the independence between Matthew and Luke. Fledderman’s resumes the Q research’s evolution in positive terms:

With Streeter’s The Four Gospels the classical period came to a close after achieving impressive results. The classical scholars probed every aspect of the source that Eichhorn suggested lay behind the double tradition from the existence and extent of Q to its style, genre, purpose, and meaning. They also explored the original order and wording of Q and its relationship to Mark.165

The presupposition of the 2SH, that Matthew and Luke are independent, is the result of an initial quest for a ‘historical’ source. It has survived through centuries into recent introductions to the New Testament.166 Consequently a major part of commentaries on Luke and Acts also base their analyses on a silent acceptance of the 2SH. Hereby they share assumptions with past research on Q. The scholars of the Oxford seminar (where Streeter’s hypothesis took its’ out-spring) imagined sources behind all three Gospels. In their analysis Mark had potentially had access to both Urmarcus and Q. They allowed some creativity to the authors compiling sources, but they did not imagine that one gospel rewrote or corrected a previous gospel. This is why the hypothesis of an Urmarcus document was useful to

163 Drury 1976, 44. 164 Drury 1976, 128. 165 Fleddermann 2005, 23. 166 An example is Raymond Brown Introduction to the New Testament, (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 111-122. Poirier argues that a majority of NT introductions are marked by “a poor grasp of the synoptic problem, both in terms of the state of the question and in terms of the facts surrounding it.” He argues that the overall effect of this lack is that “generation after generation of students have been taught ideas disproven long ago.” In John C. Poirier “The Synoptic Problem and the Field of New Testament Introduction,” JSNT 32.2 (2009), 179-190, 187. Poirier dresses a list of the introductions to the New Testament which he denounces, Ibid 187-190. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 61 them,167 and why they used the “neutral symbol Q (= Quelle, or source)” to designate what they called the “Double Tradition of St. Matthew and St. Luke”.168 They considered that the synoptic gospels drew materials from these two documentary sources “for their respective compilations.”169 Reconstructing Q’s content and the form of its wording was in the centre of their preoccupation. They preferred the hypothesis of neutral sources, whereas the scholars of 20th century became more concerned about compositional questions relating to Q.170 Sanders and Davies argue that:

Historically most scholars have been conscious that ‘Q’ is a scholarly convention which explains the Matthew-Luke double tradition, and they have deliberately remained vague about whether or not it was one document, a loose assemblage of passages, or simply a convenient name for oral or ‘floating’ traditions.171

This explains the different ways to refer to the hypothesis. I retain the label “Two Source Hypothesis” 2SH. It is alternatively described as the “Two Document Hypothesis” 2DH by defenders of Q as a document.172

2.1.4. Critique of the Two Source Hypothesis The 2SH has become the common explanation to the synoptic problem.173 In this perspective Matthew and Luke both copied Mark and followed its narrative framework. They moreover inserted sayings from the source Q, which supposedly lies behind Matthew and Luke’s double tradition. In the

167 Sanday 1911, xxv. 168 Hawkins in Sanday 1911, 97. 169 Hawkins in Sanday 1911, 97 170 Alan Kirk traces the evolution of Q research in the 20th century. He argues that Harnack’s contribution from 1907 marks a point of departure for compositional analysis of Q, while the scholars of the 19th century “were more concerned with reconstructing Q”. Alan Kirk, The Composition of the Sayings Source: Genre, Synchrony, & Wisdom Redaction in Q, (Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 1998), 2. 171 Sanders and Davies 1996, 116. 172 James M. Robinson interpreted the sayings discovered in the Nag Hammadi library as confirming the 2SH’s postulate of an early collection of Jesus sayings. James M. Robinson, P. Hoffmann, and J. Kloppenborg, The Sayings Gospel Q in Greek and English: with parallels from the Gospels of Mark and Thomas, (Leuven; Paris; Sterling: Peeters, 2001). The Oxford Seminar referred to the “Two Document Hypothesis” in Sanday 1911, xi. Christopher Tuckett also refers to the 2DH, Tuckett in Foster 2011, 9. 173 Bellinzoni, Arthur J. (ed.), The Two-Source Hypothesis: A Critical Appraisal, (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1985). There are exceptions, such as Matthias Klinghardt, who reject the 2SH and propose an alternative solution to the synoptic problem. Matthias Klinghardt, Das älteste Evangelium und die Entstehung der kanonischen Evangelien, (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 2015), 4-11. 62 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

1920’s James Hardy Ropes challenges the standard solution and argues that the 2SH ”has tended to be modified, refined and complicated to such a degree as, for that reason if no other, to arose doubts of its validity. There is a simpler, competing possibility, namely that Luke drew these sayings form Matthew, which has never been shown to be impossible.”174 By contrast, Streeter defending the 2SH regards the differences in Luke and Matthew compared to the shorter gospel of Mark as improvements and refinements of Mark’s manner of writing.175 Fitzmyer introduces the synoptic problem and different solutions in the introduction to his commentary on Luke. He bases his analysis on what he calls a modified form of the 2DH. Mark and Q are the two documents in his analysis of the synoptic problem.176 He states, “A corollary of this hypothesis is, then, the independence of Matthew and Luke.”177 Fitzmyer presupposes that Luke has three main sources Mk, Q and L (a source specific to Luke and not necessarily written).178 Fitzmyer explains that he had originally been taught in the Traditionshypothese:179 “That all three Synoptic evangelists had drawn their material from an existing oral tradition about the words and deeds of Jesus, without dependence one on the other, except that Greek Matthew depended on Aramaic Matthew, which represented an earlier composition drawn from the same oral tradition.”180 Fitzmyer admits that “the postulated source Q” is problematic because “no one has ever seen it.”181 “Another problem is the amount of redactional work that must be allowed to both Matthew and Luke.”182 These two points of particular reservation are not followed up throughout his commentary on Luke. I shall discuss the result of Fitzmyer’s source theory in his analysis of the Lukan Baptist portrait in chapter 5. I argue that the 2SH is a post-canonical paradigm. It explains the triple and double material without offending the status of Matthew or Luke, because it presupposes their independency. The 2SH can lead the reader to understand both Matthew and Luke as conservative renderings of Mark and Q. This poses two significant problems for the reading of the two canonical gospels. First, the postulated source Q is problematic because no fragment

174 James Hardy Ropes, The Synoptic Gospels, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934, 1st ed. 1924), 67. 175 Streeter 1924, 162. 176 In Fitzmyer 1981, 63. 177 In the section on “The composition of the Lukan Gospel” see Fitzmyer 1981, 64. 178 Fitzmyer 1981, 63. 179 See Wikenhauser and Schmid 1973, 276-277. 180 Fitzmyer 1981, 64. 181 Fitzmyer 1981, 79. 182 Fitzmyer 1981, 79. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 63 of it has ever been found. Secondly, Matthew and Luke are supposed to have made redactional work on Q independently. The problem is when scholars, like Fitzmyer, recognize the limits of the 2SH without integrating the critique in their analysis. In the 2SH the focus is on the source or sources behind the gospels.183 The project of this major synoptic hypothesis is influenced by the form critical quest for a transmitted tradition. It aims to reconstruct what circulated before it was settled in each gospel. This model is problematic because the interpretive character of Matthew and Luke is difficult to evaluate when the source is a reconstructed source.184 I shall move the focus from the reconstructed tradition behind to the actual gospel itself. The gospel of Luke is a construction, as it is the product of a creative process. Even if the gospels originated with some kind of transmission, they now appear as literally reworked and theologically interpreted traditions. These traditions are integral parts of the compositional strategies of the Gospel writers.185 The 2SH (alternatively the 2DH) has not closed down the discussion, neither has it explained synoptic relationships in a satisfying way. Some scholars, such as Robinson186 and Kloppenborg,187 have attempted to define Q as a document, presupposing that it really existed and that it reflects the theology of a specific community. Critics of the 2SH, like Sanders and Davies, have pointed out that the agreements between Matthew and Luke

183 Kloppenborg distinguishes between three major synoptic hypotheses: The Two Document Hypothesis, The Two Gospel Hypothesis and the Multi-Stage hypothesis. In John S. Kloppenborg, “Introduction,” in Foster 2011, 1-6, 3-4. In Tuckett’s state of the synoptic problem he distinguishes between the Two Document Hypothesis (2DH) and its main alternatives the Two Gospel Hypothesis (2GH) and the Farrer Hypothesis (FH). Christopher M. Tuckett, “The Current State of the Synoptic Problem” in Foster 2011, 9- 50, 12-13. 184 When apochryphal texts are assessed to be more interpretive than canonical texts, there is a presupposition of two different levels of status or authenticity. The canonization has settled an artificial limit to textual fluidity including only a part of existing biblical literature. The rewritten Bible approach questions this limit, and discloses that the distinction between Bible and rewritten Bible is not as sharp. 185 Although I do not adhere to Klinghardt’s solution to the synoptic problem, I agree with his focus upon the history of transmission. He assesses that the history of gospel transmission primarily was a literary process of redaction. He argues: “Mündlichkeit ist keine Kategorie, die legitimerweise zur Erklärung der Überlieferungsgeschichte der Evangelien postuliert werden kann“. Klinghardt 2015, 363. 186 James M. Robinson, The Sayings Gospel Q, (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2005). 187 Kloppenborg 2000, 31. 64 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 against Mark put the 2SH into difficulty.188 They argue that there are examples of the general fact that Matthew and Luke often agree against Mark. This can be considered evidence against the 2SH. Still the problem is that the burden of proof lies on those who contend that Q is problematic. The minor agreements between Matthew and Luke in the triple tradition as well as the ‘overlaps’ pose several difficulties for the 2SH, which makes Sanders and Davies conclude that the 2SH has two Achilles’ heels.189 The first Achilles’ heel concerns ‘minor agreements’ between Matthew and Luke against Mark. Here they distinguish between” positive agreements” and “agreements in omission.” For example, words and phrases in Mark removed and replaced elsewhere by both Matthew and Luke. This pertains for instance to the example of Mark’s citation (Mk 1:2, compared to Mt 11:10 and Lk 7:27) in chapter 5. The second Achilles’ heel concerns the Mark-Q overlaps.190 Defenders of the 2SH explain the pericopes of Mark 1:2-4, 7-8 as an example of overlap verses in which there is verbatim agreements between Mark and Q, while supporters of L/M would say that Matthew expanded Mark and that Luke used both, rearranging the material. Sanders and Davies mention three objections to the theory that Mark and Q overlapped: The number of overlaps is about fifty. They question if there was a literary relationship between Mark and Q. And if Q has used Mark or Mark used Q? 191 Both terms are products of the 2SH: ‘The minor agreements’ are only minor in this view, and the verbatim agreements between Mark-Q are only overlaps between a known and an unknown source in the perspective of the 2SH. According to the L/M approach there is overlap of two known sources, Mark and Matthew, in Luke’s rendering of both. It is a problem that commentaries on Luke build their analysis upon a silent acceptance of the 2SH. In part II I shall treat examples of positive agreements, agreements in omission and of overlaps in Luke’s rendering of Markan and Matthean material on the Baptist. I shall discuss how some commentaries omit to see Lukan changes as modifications. They treat them

188 This is the issue of ”Complexities and Difficulties”, chapter 4, in Sanders and Davies 1996, 67-83, 82. 189 Sanders and Davies 1996, 79. 190 Hengel prefers the term ”doublets” to describe what “overlaps” are according to the 2SH. Martin Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels, (London: SCM Press, 2000), 176. 191 Sanday 1911, 166. Fleddermann defends the hypothesis that Mark knew and used Q in H. T. Fleddermann, Mark and Q: A Study of the Overlap Texts, (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995). Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 65 as differences in the logic of the 2SH. Before implying the need of a lost source the plausibility of literary dependence shall be evaluated. Previously the 2SH (alternatively 2DH) was referred to as the dominant solution. 192 In recent research proponents of the 2SH recognize the limits of the hypothesis. In Christopher M. Tuckett’s193 recent status questionis he prudently states that “the 2DH (in some form) probably remains the most widely held theory.”194 And he adds with a reservation:

We are (hopefully) all now much more aware of the provisional nature of any alleged “solutions” to the Synoptic Problem, and aware too that between our (sometimes neat and simple) solutions and historical reality may lie an unbridgeable chasm.195

Tuckett deals with the two planks of the 2DH, Markan priority and the Q hypothesis.196 At the same time he recognizes a trend in recent studies which has put emphasis on locating the evangelists “within the broader context of Greco-Roman writers of the period.”197 He admits that many of the arguments “adduced by advocates of the 2DH for the existence of some kind of Q (…) are in the form of negative arguments, seeking to show that any theory of direct dependence of Luke on Matthew is unlikely.”198 He recognizes that: “The main alternatives to the 2DH have all tended to advocate a greater degree of, if not exclusive use of, direct dependence to explain synoptic agreements.”199 All of these remarks contribute to my forthcoming focus on the L/M hypothesis and my investigation of rewriting in the Gospel of Luke. The evolution and transmission of the 2SH has not been a hermeneutical task. It has concentrated on Luke’s reuse of material which does not exist

192 To the question of how the Q hypothesis got such priority in research on the Synoptic Problem see Sanders and Davies 1996, 114; Edwards 2009, 212-214. 193 Christopher Tuckett is defender of the priority of Mark and the existence of Q as a document, which influence his approach to the Gospel of Luke. See Christopher M. Tuckett, Luke’s Literary Achievement: Collected Essays, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). 194 Tuckett in Foster 2011, 49. 195 Tuckett in Foster 2011, 49-50. 196 Tuckett in Foster 2011, 31. 197 Tuckett in Foster 2011, 50. Downing compares Josephus’s rewritten Bible with the apparent strategies of rewriting in the synoptic gospels in F. Gerald Downing, “Redaction Criticism: Josephus’ Antiquities and the Synoptic Gospels I, II,” JSNT 8, 1980, 46-65; JSNT 9, 1980, 29-48. And he studies the compositional conventions in the wider Graeco-Roman world compared to the synoptic gospels in F. Gerald Downing, “Compositional Conventions and the Synoptic Problem,” JBL 107, 1988, 69-85. 198 Tuckett in Foster 2011, 37. 199 Tuckett in Foster 2011, 12. 66 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 elsewhere than in Matthew. This material does not exist in the shape imagined by Q proponents. In the following I shall introduce the model investigating Luke’s interpretive relation to Matthew.

2.2. Luke as a Rewriting of Mark and Matthew In opposition to the 2SH Watson develops the case for the “L/M theory” in his investigation Gospel Writing:200 He stresses Luke’s creativity in rendering Mark and Matthew and sustains the Farrer hypothesis referring to the more recent works of Michael Goulder and Goodacre.201 Watson coins the term “L/M theory”202 for Luke/Matthew-theory and he stresses “To establish the likelihood that Luke is the interpreter of Matthew means establishing the unlikelihood of the Q theory.”203

2.2.1. The L/M Hypothesis In the 1960’s Farrer advocated in favour of a new paradigm, and argues that the presuppositions of the 2SH are outdated. The 2SH’s quest for a ‘historical’ source is a paradigm of past research. Referring to Streeter, Farrer stressed that “the premises from which he reasoned are no longer ours.”204 There is a need to re-evaluate this question by integrating new research results. Farrer encouraged a reinvestigation of “what was unanimously settled by a previous generation.”205 He does not accuse the previous generation to reason falsely or misunderstand their business. Instead he refused to concede the premises from which advocates of the Q hypothesis reason:

Since Dr. Streeter wrote, our conception of the way in which the Gospels were composed has gradually altered; so gradually, that we have not observed the extent of the alteration. Nevertheless the change that has taken place removes the ground on which the Q hypothesis stood. For the hypothesis wholly depends on the incredibility of St. Luke’s having read St. Matthew’s book.206

200 In Watson 2013, 118-119; 157. 201 Goulder, 1989. Goodacre 2002, 10-14. Goodacre makes the point that a Q believing majority is a problem for NT studies. Ibid, 75-76. 202 The terms “Farrer hypothesis” or the “Goulder theory” are tied to the idiosyncrasies of particular scholars. Watson finds this problematic. He argues that the hypothesis in question best is described as the “L/M theory.” Watson 2013, 118-119. “The two Gospel Hypothesis” as 2GH is also preferred to as “the revised Griesbach hypothesis” about Farmer’s argument in Farmer 1964. 203 Watson 2013, 119. 204 In A. M. Farrer ”On Dispensing with Q” in D.E. Nineham Studies in the Gospels, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), 55-88, 56. 205 Farrer 1967, 55. 206 Farrer 1967, 56. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 67

Farrer defies Streeter’s theses on Q: “The Q hypothesis answered the question, ‘From what does the common non-Marcan material of Matthew and Luke derive, since neither had read the other?”207 Since Farrer asked for a change of paradigm, scholars like Drury, Goulder, and Watson have drawn particular attention to the phenomena of literal dependence between the gospels.208 Goulder develops Farrer’s main argument. He stresses that the agreements between Matthew and Luke are against Q.209 It follows logically that these agreements are against the independence of Matthew and Luke. Watson calls modifications what the 2SH labels differences in a comparative reading of the two gospels. This distinction reveals two opposite presuppositions: Luke as a creative rewriting versus Luke as a rewriting of a lost source.210 Watson argues that Lukan dependency on Matthew already has shown to be probable. If the L/M theory is confirmed, the Q theory must be false.211 Watson makes an advance by basing his argument on two pillars: first on the Matthean and Lukan coincidences,212 which is the traditional discussion of Q or not Q. Secondly, he argues in favour of a new perspective on Lukan compositional procedure.213 His aim is not to replace one source theory with another, but rather to investigate how Luke deals with sources:

207 Farrer 1967, 56. 208 Drury 1976. Goulder 1989. Watson argues that the question of how the gospel emerged from their predecessors shall be seen in light of the pre-canonical conditions in which they were written: ”Since the gospels’ canonical form functions as a hermeneutic, it can override whatever may have been the intentions or expectations of individual evangelists. If Matthew thought he was “correcting” or “contradicting” Mark on the removal of the stone, the canonical collection that incorporates both texts represents a decision against him.” A distinction between differences and modifications comparing the gospel narratives is therefore necessary. Watson 2013, 91. 209 Goulder 1989, 45-51. 210 John M. Creed pays attention to creativity in Luke already in the 1930’s although he presupposes the existence of Q. He rejects the theory on “Proto Luke” and argues that Luke probably has rewritten Mark creatively. He refers to “Luke’s editorial procedure” rearranging Mark. John M. Creed, The Gospel according to St. Luke, (London: Macmillan, 1953 (1st ed. 1930)), Introduction, lxii. Cadbury promotes an interest in the gospel writers’ “motives” and redactional activity in Cadbury 1958, 42. Creed and Cadbury both invite to look on creativity rather than compilation in Luke, but they still make their analysis with the presuppositions of the 2SH. In this they follow Bultmann. Later advocates of a creative literary activity in Luke, such as Green and Watson, follow the literary turn with Alter, Kermode, and Marin. 211 Watson 2013, 157. 212 Watson rejects the presupposition of the 2SH in the label “minor agreements” and replaces it by Matthean and Lukan “coincidences”. Watson 2013, 158. 213 Watson 2013, 159. 68 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

To replace one source-critical theory with another would achieve nothing of significance if the negative account of tradition or reception as deviation from an original datum were left intact. Rather, tradition must be understood as an ongoing process of interpretation, generated by the original datum which it subsumes into itself. To dispense with Q is also to abandon the fruitless quest for an original un- interpreted object and to attend instead to the dynamic of tradition.214

For the last 150 years the research on the synoptic gospels has been influenced by the reconstruction of the . This project has a tendency to harmonize the gospels. 215 The redaction critical approach has made it plausible that the three synoptic gospels rather should be regarded as different interpretations of the theological meaning of Jesus’ life before the resurrection, although seen through the faith upon his resurrection.216 Mogens Müller argues that the Lukan writings differ “substantially from both Mark and Matthew. This is not least because of the addition of the direct continuation of the gospel story in Acts (…) In the Lukan writings the history not only goes on, but this further history also gains constitutive meaning.”217 The authorial unity of Luke-Acts is replaced by a later reception which has construed a canonical disunity. When recognizing Luke-Acts’ pre-canonical condition Luke is no longer a gospel among others, but the first part of a longer work.218

214 Watson 2003, 158. Watson describes the dynamic of tradition in Luke as a movement in which “the reading of one text gives rise to another, as a reader becomes an evangelist in his own right.” Ibid, 158. Both the biblical rewriting and the hypertext are results of a critical reading in action, both disclose a similar strategy to what Watson defines as a dynamic of tradition. This is the principle behind the strategy of rewriting: to change a previous text from the inside by reading, repeating and overwriting it. 215 Stefan Alkier argues that each epoch influences the responses given to the synoptic problem. There is a Rezeptionsgeschichte in dealing with the synoptic problem: “The drive to find a solution does not directly follow from the interpretation of the data of the gospels themselves as much as it results from the philosophical, hermeneutical, and theological presuppositions of the divers approaches employed in each proposal.” To be published Alkier 2015, 1. 216 Mogens Müller, “The Reception of the Old Testament in Matthew and Luke-Acts: From Interpretation to Proof from Scripture,” NT 43, 2001, 315-330, 321. 217 Müller 2001, 321. 218 Concerning the initial unity of Luke-Acts see Pervo 2009, 7-8. Müller argues “the Gospel of Luke is not a “complete” composition on par with the other gospels. On the contrary, Acts appears as an integrated continuation of the Gospel of Luke. The Lukan “gospel story” is not complete without this addition, because what the earthly Jesus began is fully accomplished here.” Mogens Müller, “Acts as Biblical Rewriting of the Gospels and Paul’s Letters” in Luke’s Literary Creativity, (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2016), 96-117, 96. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 69

My focus is on Luke’s description of John the Baptist. Here the differences between the first and the third gospel are better understood as Lukan additions to Matthew than Matthew’s abbreviations of Luke.219 The Lukan revision of the Baptist figure compared to Mark and Matthew agree with the references to the Baptist in Acts. A reading of Luke rejecting the Q hypothesis should carefully define what Matthew and Luke have in common, and how this common material is to be explained. The late attestation of Luke is a supplement argument in favour of the L/M theory and shall be discussed in the subsection 3.1.2.220 In actual research Q-defenders as Kloppenborg are aware of the growing interest in the processes of literary composition, but blame it on a more complex approach:

While earlier redaction critics could assume a simple literary and editorial relationship between the later evangelists and their Marcan (or Q) source texts, and thus construct Matthew and Luke as ‘theologians’ and literary genii, each solely responsible for the entire range of literary transformations visible in each gospel, the processes of literary composition (…) recommends a more sober estimate of the activities (and talent) of the evangelists, and probably a dispersed model of transformation between Mark and his successor texts involving multiple performances (by many persons), ‘interference’ from competing performances, and the vagaries of human memory. 221

The 2SH focuses on literary transformations in Matthew and Luke compared to Mark and hypothetical Q, while defenders of L/M hypothesis focus on processes of literary composition between the three transmitted gospels. The latter is simpler because it request less sources.222 2SH

219 Hengel takes an opposite view in Hengel 2000, 189. Hengel studies the provenance of the gospels in his final seventh chapter “Postscript: Reflections on the Logia Source and the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.” Hengel reads Matthew as a reader of Luke. 220 The Third Gospel emerges in the third-century commentary of see Origène, Homélies sur S. Luc, Herni Crouwel, François Fournier, and Pierre Périchon (eds.) Max Rauer (trans.) (Paris: les Editions du Cerf, 1998). The first explicit reference to the gospel of Luke among the Fathers of the church is disputed, but appears to be Irenaeus towards the end of the second century in his Against the Heresies, 3.1.1., who aligns Luke’s message with Paul’s ‘gospel,’ see Fitzmyer 1981, 37-41. For a late attestation of Luke see Moessner 2005, 149. For the argument that Luke should be the latest of the four gospels see Mogens Müller, ”Luke - the Forth Gospel?” in Voces Clamantium in Deserto: Essays in Honor of Kari Syreeni, (Åbo: Åbo Akademi University Press, 2012), 231-242, 241-242. On the interrelationship between the Gospel of John and Luke see 4.1.2. 221 Kloppenborg in Poirier 2015, 228. 222 Goodacre criticises Goulder’s simple solution to the synoptic problem: “Matthew’s knowledge of Mark alone and Luke’s knowledge of Matthew and Mark alone, 70 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 focuses on “literary transformations” of one lost source deduced from agreements in Matthew and Luke. One of the central parameters of this approach, namely Q, is unknown. And the reconstructed Q is not necessarily a text different from Matthew.223 There is a plurality of gospel accounts, and behind various accounts there is an unfolding process of reception and interpretation.224 The canonical gospels show diversity in content and interpretation. They are not in relation to an original purer account. Rather, they disclose interrelated literary reworking, which is comparable to the method of rewritten Scripture. There is interpretation behind a rewriting. The 2SH blurs this evidence in relation to Matthew and Luke by presupposing both their independency and by explaining their agreements as rewriting of a lost source. The L/M hypothesis focuses on processes of literary composition in Luke. It is an investigation of literary relationship between existent sources. The parameters are known. It is the process of actual transmitted texts which is studied. Therefore I shall argue, with Farrer, that the L/M theory and the 2SH “do not compete on equal terms.”225

sometimes demands a degree of complexity in the application which partly undermines its credibility.” Mark S. Goodacre, Goulder and the Gospels: An Examination of a New Paradigm, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 363. Tuckett recommends cautiousness about the argument of simplicity “for any hypothesis which is “simple” in relation to the number of sources proposed may have to postulate a highly complex form of redactional activity undertaken by one or more of the evangelists. Thus a source theory may be “simpler” at one level but a great deal more “complex at another.” Tuckett in Foster 2011, 17. I shall argue that the L/M theory is not an alternative source theory. See previous citation of Watson 2013, 158. 223 “Q’s vocabulary and Matthew’s seem to be the same” in Goulder 1974, 14. See also Goulder 1989, 270. Goodacre comments on Goulder’s approach: “Taking the first full paragraph of Q, John the Baptist’s preaching, he shows how 20 percent of the text is written in “Matthews preferred phrases”.” Goodacre 1996, 43. Sanders and Davies point out that “there are Matthaeanisms in Luke” in Sanders and Davies 1996, 93, and that this provides the most important indicator that “Luke knew Matthew.” Ibid, 96. 224 This is an argument for simplicity. In the narrative sequence of the gospels, for example on John the Baptist’s public ministry, plurality of sources should not be posited without necessity according to the principle of Occam’s razor. Among competing hypothesis, the hypothesis with fewest assumptions should be selected according to this principle. I therefore maintain that the hypothesis of Luke’s dependence on Matthew should be explored before assessing that both have drawn from a common lost source. Goodacre refers to the principle of Occam’s razor in Goodacre 2002, 77. 225 Farrer 1967, 56. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 71

2.2.2. How a Gospel Emerges from its Predecessors While the Q research avoids assessing a concurrence between Matthew and Luke, the L/M hypothesis poses the question of literary dependency as the center of its investigation. What could be the main phenomena that should dominate any solution to the synoptic problem? There is a need to question the history of gospel writing – one approach goes through the study of Luke’s exegetical milieu. Is it detectable in Luke’s narrative strategy? The authority of Luke is not built upon dogma or canonicity when redacted. Therefore a historic-critical study of gospel origins takes the hermeneutical circle into account. Precisely the knowledge of rewritten Scripture through the study of biblical interpretation allows us to investigate Luke’s liberty of expression. Is it probable that Luke builds authority by transforming and mediating previous gospel narratives? My analysis of Luke’s use of previous gospels tends to test if Luke reconciles antagonist elements. Luke construes text by steady interaction with predecessor’s texts, which do not yet have canonical authority. His compositional technique is characterized by minor additions, alterations, rearrangement, paraphrase and addition of new material. It is in this sense that Luke is a “writing reader” as it has been suggested by Watson.226 This process of literary composition has much in common with the distinct historiographical tradition of rewritten Scripture. There is a harmonizing tendency in Luke’s rewriting of different gospel sources. It is a critical harmonization, because it transforms previous narratives into a new narrative. Like a biblical rewriting Luke includes an implicit critique of predecessors (cf. Lk 1:1-4). A harmonization both reveals and hides the predecessors at the same time. It is important to evaluate the liberty and creativity in Luke’s redaction, while pretending a historic critical approach. The L/M hypothesis recognizes a strategy for extending and interpreting sources in Luke/Acts. It studies an inherent dialogue and critique between the rewritten text (Luke) and its predecessors (here Mark and Matthew). Contrary to the 2SH the discussion/debate over, for example, John the Baptist takes place inside the canonical gospels. No appeal to an, in theory, more neutral exterior source is needed.

2.2.3. The “Problem” Behind the Synoptic Problem The L/M hypothesis is not an alternative source theory. However, it is an alternative response to the synoptic problem. It is a new perspective with new assumptions, whereas the 2SH pretends to be based on facts. The 2SH

226 Watson 2013, 215. 72 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 erroneously takes the agreements in Matthew and Luke as data, and it takes Markan priority as data.227 The L/M perspective moves from the 2SH's focus on sources and redaction, to a focus on processes of literary composition. The double and triple material in the synoptic gospels is not a “problem” when the gospels are written. Or it is not the same problem as after the gospels are collected in a canon. The author of Luke had access to various gospel accounts and his intention to harmonize them is expressed in Luke’s preface.228 Perhaps the evangelist disagreed “with these others, and decided silently to contradict them?”229 Watson suggests (with Lessing) that it is “one of the harmonizer’s many false assumptions that no evangelist ever meant to correct or contradict another.”230 The exegetes of the 19th century who adhere to the 2SH aim to respond the synoptic problem. They approach the gospels as historical sources, and from their perspective appears a problem of agreements and disagreements. The proposition of Q combined with the priority of Mark resolves the problem posed by a historical approach, while the 2SH succeeds in attributing a high degree of historicity to the three synoptic gospels. It is difficult to leave this historical perspective. However, another historical approach is possible, and it has been a trend in recent years to investigate on the scribal and hermeneutical practices in the 1st and 2nd century CE. It has been discovered that a biblical rewriting precisely is characterized by its ability to allow for alterations. The aim of the following analysis is to move from the perspective of sources and redaction to a perspective on the practice of harmonizing gospel writing.

2.3. Concluding Remarks The rewriting hypothesis presupposes a distinction between the fluid text231 and the canonized text. It criticizes a period’s canon dependent approach which is skeptical to the question of textual fluidity.232 Michael Fishbane

227 Cf. 2.1.2. 228 Watson 2013, 122. The reference to predecessors can serve positively to base the account on previous texts’ status, or it can induce negatively that the renderings of predecessors were incomplete. 229 This is Lessing’s suggestion cited by Watson 2013, 91. 230 Watson 2013, 90. 231 Molly Zahn argues that certain types of exegetical changes evident in rewritten Scripture “characterize the still-fluid biblical text in the Second Temple period.” In Molly M. Zahn, Rethinking Rewritten Scripture: Composition and Exegesis in the 4QReworked Pentateuch Manuscripts, (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011), 4. 232 This skepticism could have been accentuated by Reformed-Lutheran stress on Sola Scriptura. Chapter 2: The Synoptic Problem and Gospel Interpretation 73 has written extensively on ancient Jewish literature, including on the “Inner Biblical Exegesis” that according to him permeate much of the Old Testament. According to him, this inner biblical exegesis is a particular rewriting strategy, which is highly dynamic in nature. Thus, this literary phenomenon stands in stark contrast to a static canon. He argues that the rewriting strategy is more often characterized “by revisions and explications of a traditional content than by new visions and abrupt innovations.”233 He moreover explains how a post-canonical situation has influenced Bible interpretation:

With the closing of the corpus of Scripture, however, and the establishment of a fixed canon deemed prior in time and authority to rabbinic exegesis, there was a tendency to forget the exegetical dimension of Scripture and to see Scripture solely as the source and foundation of later interpretation.234

The canonization is artificial in so far as it freezes the textual fluidity. Therefore a distinction should be maintained between the moment where an exegetical dimension was part of the elaboration and construction of the narrative, and the later respectful approach to canonized texts as holy and untouchable sources. By consequence, the research studies in source theory should no longer be shocked by a gospel author’s creativity. If the narrative was written for the purpose of worship and not for being canonized the function of the narrative was to make sense to a worshiping early Christian community.235 Consequently the prior function of the narrative is not a claim of historicity. The paradox claim of historicity combined with an author’s creativity is precisely one of the characteristics of ancient historiography.236 To combine the discussion on source theory with a new perspective on interpretive rewriting an old barrier should be lifted: the refusal of the gospel author’s liberty and creativity in his redaction of sources.

233 Michael Fishbane, ”Inner Biblical Exegesis: Types and Strategies of Interpretation in Ancient Israel” in Geoffrey H. Hartmann and S. Budick (eds.), Midrash and Literature, (New Haven: Yale University, 1986), 19-37, 19. 234 Fishbane 1986, 36. 235 Müller points the fact “that the Church existed before any of its later ‘New Testament’ books came to be, and that these books were both created and collected by this Church.” Mogens Müller, “The Place of Mark and Matthew in Canonical Theology: A Historical Perspective” in Eve-Marie Becker and A. Runesson Mark and Matthew II: Comparative Readings: Reception History, Cultural Hermeneutics, and Theology, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 259-269, 267. 236 See the Introduction on the Lukan preface.

Chapter 3 Disclosing a Rewriting Strategy

3.1. Introductory Before my analysis of Luke 3:1-20 as a rewriting of Matthew 3:1-17 in chapter 4, I shall explain why I promote a focus on composition and interpretation in 3.1.1. Further, 3.1.2 discusses the difficulties linked to estimate the direction of literary dependence. Redactional criticism has not established results closing down the discussion on literary relationship between the gospels. The investigation tends to illustrate that the rewritten Scripture perspective permits to evaluate the direction of dependence. Finally, 3.1.3. presents the model on categories of changes in a rewriting, which I apply on the Lukan Baptist portrait in chapter 4 to 7.

3.1.1. Focus on Composition and Interpretive Method A biblical rewriting is characterized by literary changes when it is compared to a given source text, and what is evaluated is the rewriting strategy behind. In the examples of Vermes, Alexander and Sidnie Crawford, the source text is known as anterior to the later rewritten Scripture text.237 When Luke is studied as rewritten Scripture the first step is to question to what degree it can be said to be a rewriting of not only Mark but also Matthew. The status, the chronology of redaction and dependence of Luke compared to Matthew is open for discussion. If literary changes in Luke disclose a method of rewriting of anterior texts, Matthew included, the consequences of these changes shall be assessed. It makes a difference if Luke made literary changes to Matthew or to a lost source. The synoptical reading of the gospels favours a focus on similarities, the result being that differences become more striking. The very effect of putting three gospels in columns points to a common source. And the speculations on common lost sources date from the same epoch as the first synopses.238 Another approach is to consider these apparent differences as modifications. A reader presupposing a common lost source explains the differences between the two sources as different ideas from distinguished sources or as different ideas introduced by each author. In the hypothesis that the evangelist behind Luke rewrote the text of Matthew, the differences are no longer a result of two separate opinions but a conscious

237 Vermes 1961. Alexander 1988. See also Crawford’s analysis of the Book of Jubilees compared to Genesis-Exodus in Crawford 2008, 60-83. 238 I refer to Griesbach’s synopsis as the first gospel synopsis in 2.1.2. 76 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 reworking of one work resulting in a new text. In this case, it is more appropriate to consider the differences in the canonical gospels as modifications. Hereby the history of interpretation is taken into account, which discloses literary creativity. The early evidence of plurality indicates that the criteria of selection were not a claim to historical reference. Before the canonization, the criterion was rather one of rhetorical, or literary verisimilitude. The Jesus Christ proclaimed by the gospels was neither simply a historical person, neither a literary protagonist, but a figure disseminated in a specific system of thought. If the story is told once again in Luke, it is not because the evangelist was better informed on historical facts than predecessors. The Lukan composition and interpretation rather tend against an alternative literary and theological coherence. The synopsis is an instrument intended to facilitate the objective investigation of the differences within the Gospels. It puts them in a synchronical relationship which allows for comparisons. I see an opposition between a synoptic reading of the gospels and a reading which takes narratives expanding tendencies into account. The method of rewritten Scripture is a procedure which leaves traces of different interpretation in each text. The risk of a synoptic comparison is to neglect studying the evolution in thought and in the gospel author’s theological reasoning. Focusing on synchronic questions cannot make the point on the synoptic problem on its own. The gospels tell and make references both to events and to the reception of these events. The rewriting process is necessarily diachronic. The gain of the rewritten Scripture approach has been to reveal the inherent dialogue and critique between Scripture and later rewritten Scripture and at the same time the artificial feature of this distinction. It has disclosed that a discussion takes place in between the different biblical stories before the canonization. This approach has been an eye-opener to biblical interpretation and I contend that a similar method of rewriting also applies to the formation of the four canonical gospels. Watson stresses how the canonization influences readings of the gospels:

Canonical status changes the artefacts to which it is accorded. It is underdetermined by the largely unknown decisions that give rise to it, and yet it establishes social and institutional contexts that can foster and shape a reception process of indefinite duration. This is not more or less true of the four-gospel collection (and of the New Testament as a whole) than of the tragedies of Shakespeare or the symphonies of Beethoven. Canonical artefacts maintain a double existence, retaining the traces of their time and place of origin yet simultaneously the objects of a selection process that transports them to ever more distant times and places where their ascribed value is confirmed by repeated performance.239

239 Watson 2013, 618-19. Chapter 3: Disclosing a Rewriting Strategy 77

The reception story is ongoing process visible in each gospel, and modifications from one gospel to another may be used to evaluate the chronology of redaction. In a recent contribution on rewritten Scripture Molly M. Zahn stresses two aspects of the rewriting method: the compositional and the exegetical aspect. In a rewritten text she identifies the compositional technique separate from the exegetical purpose. She argues that these two aspects not are independent. They should be studied separately but cannot be studied in isolation from one another. Moreover she argues that:

Determining the motivation for a given deviation from the source text requires analysis of the rewritten text in its specific form (…) [T]he basic judgement that a given variation between a rewritten text and its scriptural source constitutes a modification by the rewriter, as opposed to a variant reading already present in the Vorlage, often depends upon the detection of an exegetical or theological purpose that would explain why someone would want to change the text in the first place.240

The text of Luke is both a literary composition and the result of an interpretive decision. It is artificial to separate Luke’s presentation from its interpretation of its predecessors. However, I distinguish between the method by which the evangelist has chosen to present his interpretation and the composition itself, Luke’s literary work. These two aspects of a rewriting strategy, both the compositional and the interpretive aspect, are disclosed in the text of Luke. It is possible to base my analysis on changes in the rewritten text without excessive speculation on author’s intention. 241 The compositional aspect of a rewriting is disclosed by the literary changes it makes to a source text. The interpretive aspect concerns the ideological changes, for example, the question why the Lukan John the Baptist no longer baptizes Jesus. Another question is why he first is presented as Zacharias’ son in Luke 1 and 3 and not as John the Baptist. These changes disclose a decision to change the meaning of John’s role compared to previous narratives. The gospels are constructed as narrative entities with implicit interpretation. Investigating a gospel’s composition and interpretation supplement the textual and canonical aspect of the gospel. 242

240 Zahn 2011, 16. 241 I agree with Watson to evaluate the non-existence of Q on the 2SH’s primary terrain, the texts of Matthew and Luke, and not on theological or hermeneutical grounds. See Watson 2013, 118. 242 According to David L. Dungan both Origen and Augustin focused on four initial aspects of synoptic relationships while dealing with similarities and differences among the gospels. See Dungan 1999, 140-141. In my view the canon is a possible response to 78 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

To read Luke as a rewriting of both Mark and Matthew is to assume that it is a reception of earlier texts, and that it makes rearrangements to them. As such, Luke is dependent on earlier gospels. This presupposition on literary dependence has implications for our understanding of the status of the texts. It also presupposes a specific chronology of gospel writing. The gospels were separated in time and the youngest gospel of three is supposed to have had access to the previous gospels. The status of Mark and Matthew did not hinder the later evangelist in “retouching” his sources. Neither status nor chronology hindered the evangelist behind Luke in using Matthew as a hypotext. I shall test my presuppositions on chronology, status and literary dependence throughout my analysis of the Baptist figure in Luke-Acts. Both the 2SH and the L/M hypothesis deal with the question of literary dependence. However, they disagree on the question of chronology and on the status of the text. Defenders of the 2SH have an implicit understanding of Matthew and Luke as contemporary and independent.243 Behind this assessment there could be a wish to see these two narratives as independent because of their status in church history and in the history of liturgy. The L/M hypothesis questions both the contemporariness and the status of the two gospels at the time of their redaction. Through these two approaches two different conceptions of gospel writing are disclosed. These divergent views show that reading involves classificatory decisions.

3.1.2. Direction of Literary Dependence The plausibility of a Lukan rewriting of Matthew shall be tested on the content, and not only on statistics of double or triple material. I observe a coherent rewriting of the Baptist figure in the Lukan double work, which reveals literary and ideological changes compared to its supposed predecessors. This is in favour of a late dating of Luke and shall be their first question: where to find reliable gospels about Jesus. The text critical approach concerns the second: where to find reliable texts of the canonical gospels. The composition responds the question of how they were composed. And interpretation concern how the gospels “express and reveal the central mystery of Christian faith.” Ibid, 141. 243 Ulrich Luz dates the Gospel of Matthew not long after the year 80. Luz 1989, 92-93. He considers the formation of Mark and the destruction of Jerusalem as the terminus a quo. He discusses the terminus ad quem without referring to the Matthean material, which is common to Luke. Fitzmyer refers to a large consensus in Lukan studies dating Luke to 80-85. Fitzmyer 1981, 53-57. Fitzmyer mentions Mark as one of Luke’s sources. He makes no mention of the material Luke has in common with Matthew as related to the question of dating, although he refers to Luke’s preface, which admits handling “many” others who undertook to write accounts before him. Chapter 3: Disclosing a Rewriting Strategy 79 considered in light of the fact that the attestation of Luke and Matthew in later sources could leave 30-40 years between their redaction.244 Mogens Müller contends a late date for the composition of Luke,245 and argues that this question is closely linked to the question of literary dependence:

It could be maintained that the obsession for having sources for reconstructing the life of Jesus made blind the more obvious view that the later gospels are to be seen as rewritings of their predecessor(s). When it is ascertained that the names of the gospel authors are the result of a later churchly interest in relating the originally anonymous writings to known and trustworthy persons of the first generation, the discussion of provenance, order and origin should be freed to build on other premises, making the ante quem of each gospel their attestation in other sources. This pertains not least to the Lukan writings. In their case the reason for an early date of around a decennium or more before A.D. 100, seems mainly to have been that Luke should be contemporary with Matthew so that it could not be assumed that Matthew was among Luke’s sources.246

In lack of evidence to the contemporariness of Matthew and Luke their estimated dates of redaction are insufficient to exclude a literary dependence. A late date for the composition of Luke shall not be excluded in order to respond one particular hypothesis, and the discussion of the gospels’ relationship shall be taken on others grounds combined with the probability of Luke’s late attestation. I have discussed the 2SH focus on statistics and similarities, and I shall question if redaction criticism has made it possible to evaluate literary dependence from the different content of each gospel. The redaction criticism focuses upon the characteristics of each gospel, and finds four different theological threads.247 By contrast, to regard one gospel as a rewriting of others is to evaluate the literary dependence between biblical

244 For a discussion of the attestation of Luke see Andrew Gregory’s monograph in which he concludes that we have no certain attestation of Luke (and Acts) before Justin. Andrew Gregory, The Reception of Luke and Acts in the Period before Irenaeus: Looking for Luke in the Second Century, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 53-54, 291- 292. Defenders of a common lost source, by contrast, will date Matthew and Luke as close as possible. On this point, Fitzmyer argues that Luke-Acts “should be dated prior to the formation or circulation of the Pauline corpus.” He adopts A.D. 80-85 as the date for Luke-Acts. Fitzmyer 1981, 57. Bovon adopts A.D. 80-90 for the composition of Luke-Acts. Bovon 1991, 28. 245 Müller 2012, 236. 246 Müller 2012, 233-234. 247 Dibelius initiates a form-critical reading of Luke. Later advocates of a redaction critical reading are Creed, Cadbury and not least Conzelmann. 80 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 texts, which have remarkably similarities in content and in wording. 248 The rewritten Scripture perspective is therefore not a variant of redaction criticism. It is a new perspective taking into account the exegetical milieu of the Gospel writers. It compares texts in the light of a common literary strategy which is narrative development249 on a previous text. The history of interpretation shall be considered while comparing the four gospels and the later apocryphal gospels. Luke can be read as rewritten Scripture in a large sense covering the ways in which Scripture was handled by Jewish writers in the Second Temple period. Luke’s method of rewriting is an example of biblical interpretation in antiquity, and therefore I shall refer to Luke’s rewriting strategy as a rewriting of New Testament gospels. For in the evangelist’s attitude towards Mark and Matthew, Luke has reproduced the rewritten Scripture method. Hereby my approach differs from redaction criticism. In a recent contribution Andrew Gregory argues that redactional material is inappropriate to evaluate in which order the synoptic gospels have been written:

Most redaction-critical study seeks to shed light on the theological emphases of an evangelist by noting how his gospel differs from that of his supposed source or sources, in so far as they are available for comparison. On the 2DH, this means the way in which Luke and Matthew has each (presumably independently of the other) used and modified Mark and Q. On the FH, it means the way in which Matthew has used Mark, and Luke in turn has used Matthew and Mark. On the 2GH, it means the way in which Mark has used and modified material found in each of Matthew and Luke.250

248 Zahn 2011, 2. She distinguishes between an expanded biblical text and the method of reworking which is behind. Her approach concerns changes in rewritten Scripture of Second Temple Judaism and not the New Testament. 249 There is no contradiction between rewritten Scripture and narrative development. The latter is a universal literary praxis theorized by Roland Barthes as expansion “le récit est infiniment catalysable” Barthes 1966, 11. Docherty deals with rewritten Bible as a narrow genre definition compared to narrative expansion. In Susan Docherty, “Joseph and Aseneth: Rewritten Bible or Narrative Expansion? JSJ 35/1, (2004), 27-48, 48. In my view, the first is a subcategory of the second. 250 Andrew Gregory ”What is Literary Dependence?” in P. Forster, A. Gregory, J.S. Kloppenborg and J. Verheyden (eds.), New Studies in the Synoptic Problem, (Leuven; Paris; Walpole: Peeters, 2011), 87-114, 110. Gregory refers to 2DH (for “two- document-hypothesis, which is an alternative to the 2SH accentuating the source as a written document). He mentions the FH (for the “Farrer-hypothesis”), which predates the Mark-without-Q or L/M hypothesis. The 2GH refers to the “two-gospel-hypothesis” which is a reviewing of the Griesbach-hypothesis presupposing that Mark rewrote Matthew and Luke. Chapter 3: Disclosing a Rewriting Strategy 81

Gregory argues that the presence of redactional material found in one gospel and compared to another gospel is inapt to determine the direction of dependence between the synoptic gospels. In his view their results are dependent upon a prior decision about the nature and direction of dependence between the synoptic gospels. And he stresses that the need for this prior decision “will always be susceptible to charges of circularity if used in an attempt to test the direction of such dependence.”251 Gregory presumes that what I deal with as 2SH (2DH), L/M hypothesis (FH) and 2GH are competing hypotheses and that their common data “may be interpreted in different ways and used in support of different and mutually exclusive hypotheses.”252 He concludes that the hypotheses are competing, and therefore will not determine the direction of literary dependence between the synoptic gospels. But his presupposition is incomplete. The 2SH is based on data and deduction, because it presupposes a reconstructed source. The L/M hypothesis is based on data. It is based on the text as result and as a final product of a rewriting activity. It permits a compositional analysis of three transmitted gospels. It is comparable to the 2GH which studies the way in which Mark should have used and modified material found in Matthew and Luke. But the L/M hypothesis and the 2GH do not share the same premises as the 2SH. Both dispend with the 2SH’s hypothesis of a lost source Furthermore, Gregory fails to take into consideration the importance of the Gospel of John, which is relevant for the question of creativity. It is artificial to separate the three synoptics from the Gospel of John in the evaluation of literary dependence. Because of its originality the Gospel of John is apart. But why permit narrative development and originality to the author of John and not to Luke? Therefore it is legitimate to focus on each evangelist’s compositional activity, and each gospel’s eventual literary dependence on/ relationship to predecessors.253

251 Gregory 2011, 112. Goodacre criticizes when defenders of the 2SH state that redaction criticism has clarified the literary methods and distinctive theological emphases of Matthew and Luke on the assumption of dependence on Mark and Q, and when they further argue that this clarification should be an argument in favour of the 2SH. In his view this redactional-critical argument is an argument of circularity. Goodacre 2001, 75. 252 Gregory 2011, 113. 253 Robert Morgan refers to the Cribbs-Shellard hypothesis arguing that Luke was written after the Gospel of John. An earlier tendency to marginalize John is contradicted by the possibility that each evangelist may have responded to his predecessors. In Robert Morgan, “Which was the Fourth Gospel? The Order of the Gospels and the Unity of Scripture” JSNT 54/16 (1994): 3-28, 28. See 4.1.2. 82 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

The conclusion of the Jerusalem symposium on the synoptic gospels, held in 1984 was “that a literary, historical and theological explanation of the evangelists’ compositional activity, giving a coherent and reasonable picture of the whole of each Gospel, is the most important method of argumentation in defence of a synoptic hypothesis.”254 The ambition to approach the compositional activity of each of the synoptic gospels has not yet permitted to disclose the superiority of one hypothesis compared to others. Gregory argues that “Each compositional analysis is useful in so far as it advances and defends the hypothesis that it follows, but it does not thereby demonstrate that other hypotheses are not also (…) plausible.”255 On the contrary, I contend that an analysis of Luke’s compositional technique can move the discussion on synoptic relationships further. The 2SH and the L/M hypothesis are not concurrent as long as they study different objects. The latter studies transmitted texts, while the first compares these same texts with an unidentified and unidentifiable source.

3.1.3. Focus on “Literary Changes” in Luke Compared to Matthew In the previous subsection I have assessed the difficulty of deciding in which direction the literary relationship between Luke and Matthew goes. It is in fact not possible to demonstrate that Luke’s versions of common sayings, for example, all are secondary. An alternative approach therefore focuses on Luke’s compositional procedure. This is in the centre of Francis Watson’s analysis on Luke as interpreter, which takes its starting point in how Luke has dealt with Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.256 The perspective of Watson clearly differs from the presuppositions of the 2SH. He refers to Luke’s rewording and rearrangement of Matthean material.257 His aim is not to refute the Q hypothesis, but to look differently at the question of tradition. To ask if material common to Matthew and Luke is “double tradition” is in my opinion a leading question, as it is to

254 Cited by Gregory in Gregory 2011, 113. 255 Gregory 2011, 113. 256 Watson 2013, 159. 257 Watson 2013, 203-216. Watson refers to Luke as a “rewriting” of Matthew in the parable of the pounds or talents (Lk 19:11-27=Mt 25:14-30) and of the two sons (Lk 15:11-32 = Mt 21:28-32). In these examples the Lukan and Matthean wording diverges more widely than is usual in their shared material. Watson argues that Luke’s rewriting “aims both to exploit narrative potential unrealized in Matthew (…) and to suggest an alternative rationale for Early to the Matthean one.” Watson 2013, 203. ”In editing, rewriting, and interpreting the gospels of Mark and Matthew for and other readers, Luke follows a simple compositional procedure (…)” Watson 2013, 215. Chapter 3: Disclosing a Rewriting Strategy 83 presuppose that there is “an original uninterpreted object.”258 I do not believe that there existed such a thing as an uninterpreted object. Rather do I find very convincing Watson’s notion of “an ongoing process of interpretation, generated by the original datum which it subsumes into itself.”259 Watson calls it “the dynamic of tradition.”260 What he describes here without naming it is comparable to a palimpsest.261 We are in possession of a result of rewriting. In this sense Luke is a “rewritten Gospel”. This is the pivot of my analysis. There is no direct access to the original datum, which is underneath Luke. Luke has covered it by copying it. This ‘unfaithful’ reproduction262 was a legitimate literary feature in the genre of antic historiography as mentioned in chapter 2. The gain of the rewritten Scripture perspective has been to disclose a method of rewriting. This method consists of both a compositional and an interpretive technique. My purpose is therefore to study both Luke’s presentation and interpretive technique. In my analysis of the Lukan Baptist portrait I shall investigate what appears as modifications in the Gospel of Luke, when it is read as a rewriting of Mark and Matthew. These modifications are assessed as differences in the logic of the 2SH. By contrast, I shall focus on Lukan changes in its portrait of John the Baptist compared to Mark and Matthew. First, I shall analyse the literary aspects of these changes. Secondly, I shall assess what could have motivated these changes: Does a specific modification respond to a particular problem or embarrassment? This question applies to the ideological aspect of the changes. I shall therefore distinguish between the compositional and interpretive aspect of the rewriting263 although these always are interwoven in a narrative’s production of sense.

258 Watson 2013, 158. 259 Watson 2013, 158. 260 Watson 2013, 216. 261 Watson does not refer to the perspective of rewritten Scripture neither to Genette’s conception of palimpsests and hypertextuality. He takes his point of departure in what is actually transmitted in the canonical gospels. He moves from a point of view of endless speculation on lost hypothetical sources to a canonical perspective. He does not exclude a written source accessible to the author of Matthew’s gospel. He questions the attitude the evangelists had to their sources. It was rather transforming than reproducing tradition. If one concedes a creative activity to the author of Luke, there is no longer need of an uninterpreted object behind Matthew and Luke. Watson 2013, 99. 262 It is only in our modern sense that it is an unfaithful reproduction. 263 Watson deals with “rearrangement and interpretation” Watson 2013, 164. Zahn distinguishes between “the compositional and the exegetical aspect”. Zahn 2011, 16. 84 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

It is generally admitted that addition, condensing and anticipation of narrative motives are characteristic of a rewriting procedure. A number of changes and additions in Luke - compared to Matthew’s reworking of Mark - reflect a Lukan rewriting rather than remnants of hypothetical lost sources. I shall give a survey of two models: In Gospel Writing Watson proposes three categories in order to assess modification made by a rewritten text to a source text. His approach deals with adapted, rejected and reserved material. Watson contends that “Luke responds to the gospel of Matthew in three main ways. He may adapt or reject or reserve the material he finds there.”264 In light of Watson’s notion on a dynamic of tradition I propose a model on Luke’s compositional and interpretive activity.265 My model also owes to the rewritten Scripture perspective. In 1998 Gregory E. Sterling, for example, distinguishes between three basic categories of changes made to a source text as omissions, alterations and expansions/additions.266 His method is similar to the fifth point in Alexander’s list of characteristics from 1988 (see 1.2.2.), which stresses that “rewritten Bible texts follow the Bible serially, in proper order, but they are highly selective in what they represent.” They are characterized by omissions, adaptions and expansions.267 The same compositional technique can be detected/studied as literary changes in Luke compared to Mark and Matthew. These changes consist of additions, omissions and rearrangements. These are at the same time interpretive changes. They make new sense in the rewriting. For example,

264 Watson 2013, 158-159. 265 In Fitzmyer’s redaction-critical reading of Luke he distinguishes use of sources and compositional activity. He stresses that Luke’s use of sources does not “exhaust the problem of the composition of his work.” Fitzmyer 1981, 91. Fitzmyer explains Lukan “redaction” and “rewriting” of Mark in subcategories on: improving style and language, abbreviations, omitted episodes, omitted geographical indications, transposition of material, and redactional modifications. Ibid 92-95. Fitzmyer and Watson do not refer to the rewritten Scripture perspective, but they share the procedure of reading texts as rewritings in a large sense. Fitzmyer’s quest on a compositional activity behind Luke is similar to the working method of Vermes who studied rewritten Bible texts and their strategy, which he described as “some type of reworking, whether through rearrangement, conflation, or supplementation, of the present canonical biblical text.” Vermes, “Bible Interpretation at Qumran,” ErIsr 20 (1989) 184-191, 185. Crawford investigates “the method of interpretation and the scribal techniques used in rewriting.” Crawford 2008, 15. 266 In Gregory E. Sterling “The Invisible Presence: Josephus’s Retelling of Ruth” in Steve Mason (ed.) Understanding Josephus: Seven Perspectives, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academis Press, 1998, 104-171), 110. 267 Alexander 1988, 117. Zahn also distinguishes between three categories of changes as: A. additions, B. omissions, and C. alterations. Zahn 2011, 17. Chapter 3: Disclosing a Rewriting Strategy 85 there is an interpretive motif behind the changes on Jesus’ baptism in Luke.268 I shall follow a combination of Alexander’s and Watson’s models on categories of changes.269 I shall evaluate the modifications made by Luke as probable rewriting of written and transmitted source texts. My analysis deal with examples of literary changes as either new material, omitted, adapted, or reserved material. New material (hereafter NM) either discloses an author’s theological agenda, literary creativity or it is addition of material from elsewhere (lost sources).270 An example is the inserted explanation on what is expected of people as fruits of their repentance in Lk 3:10-14. This new material responds and explains how one can “Bear fruits in keeping with repentance/worthy of repentance.” A sentence which is shared by Lk 3:8 and Mt 3:8. Omitted material (OM). Omissions of known material stress that the author of Luke was an evangelist and not a copyist.271 If Luke is a rewriting of Matthew a sentence in Matthew omitted in Luke is considered as omitted material.272 According to the L/M hypothesis a sentence can be considered as omitted material if it is in Matthew, but lacks in a similar narrative context in Luke, which is shared with Matthew. For example, Luke omits to describe John the Baptist’s clothing and diet, when compared to Mk 1:6 and Mt 3:4.273

268 I prefer the notion of “interpretive method” to Zahn’s “exegetical technique,” because the latter induces a notion of commentary and the ideological changes in a rewriting are precisely not exegetical commentaries, but hidden commentaries. 269 Alexander’s and Watson’s category of adapted material is comparable to Zahn’s third category of alterations. Zahn 2011, 17. 270 NM is therefore not an argument in favour of literary dependence. Lost sources previous to the canonical gospels are probable, but I am not convinced supplement material necessarily derives from other sources. The Lukan birth narratives on John the Baptist and Jesus, for example, probably are theological interpretations of both Scripture and of previous gospels. These interpretations have been incorporated into a new gospel narrative. NM discloses a rewriting activity only in combination with RM and OM. 271 Watson deals with OM as rejected material indicating the evangelist’ creativity. Watson 2013, 159. 272 If Luke and Matthew rewrote a lost source a sentence which is not shared by both will logically not be attributed to their common source. 273 One could expect to find the information on John’s clothing and diet after Lk 3:4, instead Luke completes the citation compared to Mk 1:3 and Mt 3:3. In his study of John the Baptist’s diet James A. Kelhoffer argues that the three synoptic gospels place John in the wilderness by three distinguished literary devices. Mk 1:2 argues by means of OT scripture and John’s clothing and food. By contrast Mt 3:1 places John in 86 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Adapted material (AM) is found in the rewritten text as selected and reworded material, which in Watson’s terminology has been “subjected to minor transpositions, as appropriate.”274 It reveals direct literary relationship of some kind, either between known sources or as reuse of a common lost source. It concerns the selected and unchanged material inserted in a new text. An example is Lk 3:7-9 as AM of Mt 3:7-10.275 Variations in the Lukan and the Matthean description of the same subject can be considered either as differences in the rendering of a source text in a triangle relation between one source and two isolated rewriters. An alternative approach is to evaluate it as adapted material, supposing that the younger text contains changes in its rewriting of the older text in a dual relation. The latter presupposes that the two texts are separated in time. Secondly, that the status of the hypotext does not hinder the hypertext in rewriting it. And third, that the author of the youngest text had access to the former text. Reserved material (RM) is a valid indicator of literary dependence between two known sources. RM is material known from a written source, in this case Matthew, but is found replaced in Luke in a new narrative context.276. The account of the imprisonment of John the Baptist is the wilderness before citing Isa 40:3. Luke anticipates the information in the birth narratives: “Also differing from Mark 1:2-8, the early chapters of Luke offer a treatment of John and the wilderness analogous to that in Matt 3:1-6. For example, Luke describes the young John, prior to the beginning of his (adult) public ministry, as having already spent a considerable period of time in the wilderness (Luke 1:80)” James A. Kelhoffer, The Diet of John the Baptist, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 124. 274 Watson 2013, 159. 275 Fitzmyer argues that “apart Lk 3:7-9, 17 the preaching of John the Baptist, and Lk 4 4:2b-13 the temptations of Jesus, Luke has never inserted the material of Double Tradition into the same Markan context as Matthew.” In Fitzmyer 1981, 75. I argue that precisely this Lukan AM indicates that it follows Matthew while reworking the Matthean text creatively. Fitzmyer’s argument joins Streeter’s argument in defending Q (Streeter 1924, 170), but lacks to render a probable explication of a host of other agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark, for example, the fact to insert a genealogy and a birth narrative into their respective gospels. 276 Alexander’s model lacks a category of reserved material. Watson’s examples of reserved material are indicators of literary dependence, and hereby these examples sustain the main argument of the L/M hypothesis. In comparison of the method, Fitzmyer states that Luke pursuit a literary effect which is responsible for the transposition of some Markan material. Fitzmyer 1981, 94. In my view the latter is comparable to what Watson’s categorizes as reserved material. Cadbury referred to this specific Lukan change of Mark as a “transposition” and explained the motive of this change by “the desire to conclude at once a subject when it has been introduced.” His starting point for studying Luke’s method of using sources is a comparison of Luke and Mark according the stylistic and literary character of Luke’s redaction of Mark. Henry Chapter 3: Disclosing a Rewriting Strategy 87 anticipated and abbreviated in Luke 3:19-20 (Compared to Mk 1:14; Mk 6:17-29 and Mt 4:12; Mt 14:1-12). It is reserved material inserted after the Lukan account of John’s preaching. An information is reserved but added in an earlier or later narrative context. As such the RM speaks in favour of an interpreting activity.277 Compared to AM which only changes some wording in a similar narrative context, the RM indicates a higher degree of creativity. The RM is inserted in a new narrative situation, and hereby changes the chronology or the stylistic order of the narrative. Compared to Matthew, Luke’s accounts on John as embarrassed to receive Jesus and John’s imprisonment are examples of reserved material (in chapter 6 and 7). Luke’s modifications disclose that he was influenced by his exegetical milieu. As evidenced in his literary and ideological changes in rewriting previous gospels, Luke presents the same literary strategy as that which also abounds in the rabbinic midrash tradition. This hypothesis shall be demonstrated through exegetical analyses.

3.2. Concluding remarks As the gospels tell different stories on the Baptist, I shall investigate the technique of narrative expansion on the Baptist figure in Luke-Acts and in a comparison of Mark, Matthew and Luke. Investigating this technique has to do with reading the gospels as threads in a progression of interpretation of the figure. In this sense the narrative technique informs about early Christianity as a historical phenomenon. Luke’s use and recasting of the Baptist figure disclose that the evangelist behind it was acquainted with Mark and Matthew, and evaluated predecessors’ renderings on the same figure. The question of literary relationship is important and relevant in a reinvestigation of Christian origins.278

Cadbury, The Style and Literary Method of Luke. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920, 77. 277 The meeting between John and Jesus in the Matthean and Markan rendering of John’s public ministry is anticipated in Luke’s double birth and infancy narratives. It can also be evaluated as RM. 278 The dominant role of the 2SH in synoptic studies has biased the question of a possible direct literary relationship between Matthew and Luke.

Part II Luke’s Characterization of John the Baptist

Chapter 4 A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts

4.1. Introductory I shall read the material Luke has in common with Mark and Matthew in Luke 3:1-20 in light of the L/M hypothesis, and demonstrate how the rewritten Scripture perspective is an alternative to a focus on sources and redaction. Through a reading of the Lukan portrait of John the Baptist a literary strategy appears: Luke changes the chronology and the geographical indications through omission, adaption, expansion and anticipation. The result is an alternative portrait of the Baptist figure compared to the other gospels. Luke’s Ars Narrandi279 does not seem bounded by pretended exactitudes of previous narratives, but rather corrects them in an agenda that is coherent with the thread of Luke’s overall literary work. First, I shall analyse the narrative dimension of rewritten Scripture280 and Luke’s characterization of John the Baptist through omitted material (OM), new material (NM) and adapted material (AM). Luke also modifies the portrait by narrative anticipation, which I refer to as reserved material (RM). In 4.1.2., I shall analyse the dynamic of tradition, which is behind reshaping an early Christian figure in Luke-Acts.281 Is the Baptist a plastic

279 Feldman argues that Josephus’ rewritten Bible works disclose an Ars Narrandi, which is characterized by literary changes as omissions, alterations and additions. In Feldman 1998, 290-297. We can find similar trends of history telling in Luke-Acts and in Josephus’ works. It is therefore useful to undertake the project of analyzing the Lukan double work in light of Josephus’s literary strategy. In the beginning of the 2nd century Luke follows a common culture of the 1st century Greek-speaking world of Josephus. Mason argues that “the greatest benefit for New Testament readers in studying Josephus may come not from areas of overlap in what the two corpora refer to, but from the access Josephus affords to values and assumptions that shaped the conceptual world of the New Testament writers.” In Steve Mason, “The Writings of Josephus: Their significance for New Testament Study” in Tom Holmén and S. Porter (eds.), Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, vol. 2, (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 1639-1686, 1641. 280 There is no theoretical introduction to the analysis of New Testament texts as biblical rewritings. There are, however, studies based upon a comparison between biblical rewritings and New Testament gospels. Goulder 1974. Drury, 1976. Reinmuth, 1994. 281 Ernst notes the similarity between the way Josephus and Luke present the Baptist figure. Ernst 1989, 257. I shall argue that both stress a figure who preaches ethical right behavior. Their audience differs and therefor Luke’s Baptist figure can be said to be a more “Christian” figure, while Josephus’ Baptist figure is one of multiple more or less 92 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 figure in the sense that it can take different forms? The following subsection sketches a survey of John the Baptist in Luke-Acts (4.2.). From this survey I shall compare Mark, Matthew and Luke and question what modifications appear in Luke’s rendering of the Baptist figure. From this I shall measure the editorial work disclosed in Luke. Is the Baptist a re- casted figure? By reading Luke as a rewriting of Matthew, I shall structure my analysis according to Luke’s modifications of Matthew, rather than following the two narratives as independent accounts. The reasons for this have been set forth in my preliminary methodological presentation. My decision to read Luke as a rewriting of Matthew is not without its share of difficulties. The types of changes made to a source text in a rewriting can be difficult to recognize, when there is uncertainty about the chronological order of the texts. Still, I assess that differences between two gospels shall be evaluated in light of a probable relationship. To test literary dependence is prior to speculate on lost sources. It shall therefore be tested if differences between two similar texts are likely to be results of one text’s disagreement with the other. Only when it is possible to exclude literary dependence can speculation on lost sources begin.282 My aim is to compare features of the text systematically and to test the probability that the Matthean portrait of the Baptist is prior to the Lukan. My point of departure is Luke’s often neglected omission283 of John the Baptist at the Jesus’ baptism in Lk 3:21-22.284 Seen as a modification, does

revolutionary desert preachers. See Josephus on renewal prophets in Jewish War 2.13.4 §259. 282 Morgan’s approach to Gospel relationships maximizes the relationship between the Gospels, while “many scholars minimize them.” Morgan argues that “The differences are a fact and need explaining theologically, by reference to the one gospel they are all supposedly communicating, whatever the contingent historical explanations of how those differences occurred. Those who minimize the literary relationships between the completed Gospels avoid the embarrassing suggestion that the later Evangelists were critical or their predecessor(s) but lose the possibilities of historical clarification suggested here.” Morgan 1994, 7. 283 The omission in Luke is mentioned by scholars and evaluated as a modification in relation to Mark, but not in relation to Matthew. The result of this modification is interpreted in different ways and some scholars harmonize the Lukan account with the Markan and Matthean account. Evans refers to “the Baptism of Jesus by John” in its Lukan form and regards it as “historical fact- it cannot have been invented- that Jesus submitted to John’s baptism.” Evans 1990, 245-246. Bovon states that John’s presence at Jesus’ baptism is implicit: “Luc rapporte brièvement l’arrestation de Jean (v. 19-20) et le baptême de Jésus (v. 21-22), qui, naturellement, a eu lieu avant l’arrestation.” Bovon 1991, 162. Bovon explains the anticipation of imprisonment as a stylistic figure, which has no impact on the fact that John baptized Jesus in Luke’s rendering. Ibid, 174. And he explains the omission of the forerunners name in the baptism scene as Luke’s Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 93 this omission disclose more than a stylistic motivation on Luke’s part? In the following, I shall argue that Luke has a new agenda on John’s Baptism, which the double work downplays as inferior to a baptism in the Holy Spirit. If the Baptist portrait also discloses a new agenda, the thematic and chronological line of the Lukan narrative will have to be reconsidered.

4.1.1. John as a Narrative Figure Later interpretations of the Baptist figure shall be suspended from our study of the Lukan Baptist portrait, although they influence our perception of the figure. There is a vernacular understanding of John the Baptist in fine arts as well as in popular oral and visual culture. The history of reception has contributed to establish a harmonizing portrait of the baptizer, who in early church history and in art history has been adopted as a Christian figure. His name is inscribed in the calendar as Midsummer, June 24, according to Luke’s double birth narratives, which tells of about six month between the birth of John and Jesus, and it is a common name of mental hospitals.285 I shall make an unorthodox comparison between Luke’s and the renaissance painter da Vinci’s Baptist portrait. The literary strategy of biblical rewritings can be compared with imitating strategies in other arts like music and in painting. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, paints John the Baptist with a naked torso, as if the painter represents the figure as it is described in Luke without mention of particular clothing. Da Vinci’s choice was aesthetic. However, it is probable that he isolated the Lukan portrait from the other gospels’ portraits of the Baptist. Every time the aim to downplay John’s role as a baptizer in favor of his role as a “preacher” of conversion. Ibid, 175. Fitzmyer recognizes that John is removed “from the scene before Jesus appears” in Luke 3:19-20. Fitzmyer 1981, 476. He counts “the Lucan redactional modifications of the Marcan source” in Luke 3:21-22, but where Luke approaches Matthews account Fitzmyer explains the resemblance as coincidental. Ibid, 480. My main critic of these commentaries is that they avoid considering a literary relationship between Matthew and Luke in this specific section on John’s public ministry. Evans, Bovon and Fitzmyer agree that Luke 3:1-22 has rewritten Marc 1:1-11, but for what Luke has in common with Matthew 3:1-17 they presuppose a Lukan rewriting of Q’s account on John’s ministry. Evans 1990, 246. Bovon 1991, 163. Fitzmyer 1981, 479. By contrast, Goulder reads the Lukan account of John’s public ministry as a rewriting of both Mark and Matthew’s account. Goulder 1989, 281-282. 284 In the Gospel of John the Baptist figure witnesses Jesus’ specific baptism, but he is not mentioned as his baptizer (Jn 1:32-33). Ernst notices this and that the baptism scene is downplayed in both John and Luke. Ernst 1976, 151, 154. Ernst argues that it modifies the Baptist’s role in Luke, but he does not evaluate if this narrative change indicates a literary relation to either the Gospel of John or Matthew. Ibid, 148-150. See 4.1.2. 285 “Psykiatrisk Center Sct. Hans” in Roskilde, Denmark, for instance. 94 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Baptist appears in literature, popular hymns, painting or film the presentation of the figure is coloured by an interpretation.286 A film on Jesus’ life or an adaption of the gospels to children will include a harmonised picture of John the Baptist. Although the figure never is mentioned in the church’s early credos, it belongs to the story telling of the life of Jesus. This is one way of explaining the necessity of this figure in a gospel narrative. A second explanation is the practice of a baptism rite which has survived in 2000 years. There is a need for a narrative on its origin and a further need to tell this story. Therefore the Baptist figure is part of the foundation story on Christianity, and the evangelist behind Luke is the storyteller, who makes the most detailed portrait of him. John is one of the characters surrounding Jesus. Just like Jesus’ mother Mary, the Peter, Mary Magdalen, Judas, Thomas, Pilate and Herod, John the Baptist plays a role in the drama of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. These figures are inserted in specific narratives, which we find gathered in the New Testament. In this sense the Baptist is one of early Christian figures. Their function is part of a project to des-isolate the Christian narration. The Lukan gospel narrative includes and adds diverse characters and inserts them into the narrative’s chronology and topography. It becomes a new narrative proposition compared to Luke’s predecessors.287 This strategy permits him to detach the Christian kerygma from a particular out-spring in time and place. It establishes a larger network pointing back- and forward in time. In this sense the figures can be defined as Christian constructions. One of these constructions, the Baptist, becomes the prophetic charismatic forerunner, the revolutionary preacher. In Luke’s perspective this figure also becomes a transition from an old to a new era.288 A step from one current of religious thought to nascent Christianity is narrated through the Baptist’s preaching of a new rite de

286 Daniel Lanois’ hymn “The Maker” (1989) is a similar example from popular music of our time. 287 stresses this phenomenon as a part of the redactional construction of Luke-Acts: “Das Auftreten Jesu in Israel ist einerseits typische Vorabbildung der künftigen Mission der Kirche, andererseits auch ihre historische Voraussetzung. Historische Einmaligkeit und Zeitlose Vorbildlichkeit stehen in Korrespondenz.” Hans Conzelmann, Die Mitte der Zeit: Studien zur Theologie des Lukas [1954], (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1964), 173. See also Louis Marin, Sémiotique de la Passion, topiques et figures, (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1971). 288 The theme of John’s baptism as an inferior baptism is introduced for the first time in Mark’s gospel narrative when John announces: ‘I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit’ Mk 1:8. This theme has been rewritten in Mt 3:11 before Luke-Acts rewrote and expanded upon both the Markan and the Matthean account. See 6.1.2. Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 95 passage. To tell the story of a passage also requires a change in condition. The rite of the baptism covers a change which is preceded by a conversion and followed by a new condition. If Luke-Acts tells the story of how the gospel was spread out, it also tells about an evolving adherence to a new social group. Precisely the question of different social groups is defined by the way the members adhere to each group. In Luke, the author tells us how disciples first adhere to the teaching of Jesus and since in Acts how this group founds the nascent Christian church with a specific Christian baptism.289 Chapters 5 to 7 investigate the theological program on John’s public ministry that regulates the way Luke rewrites material received from earlier written sources.

4.1.2. John the Baptist as an Early Christian Figure One can read the gospels in the context of early Christianity as a historical phenomenon, without claiming that they give access to the historical Baptizer. Luke explains with literary skill that a man called John born of Zechariah and Elizabeth has been the forerunner and the predictor of the ‘true’ saviour’s imminent arrival. As other prophets in the history of Israel, this man will play an important role in order to prepare the people for salvation. In some degree there could be a historical person behind this portrait.290 The fact that John the Baptist plays a significant role in the gospels indicates that the evangelists need the figure of John as a contrast to their Jesus figure.291 In Luke, moreover, the description of the Baptist is

289 This is contrary to the gospel of John 1:35-37 that tells that the Baptist’s disciples become Jesus’ disciples. Also on this point Luke maintains a sharp distinction between the two figures. 290 I shall not deal separately with the conflict between a historical Baptist figure and a theological construction in relation to the gospels’ Jesus figure. Conzelmann reads the Baptist portrait in light of Luke’s Christology in Conzelmann 1964, 172-73. Christoph G. Müller makes a Narratologische Analyse of the Baptist figure in Luke. He argues that rhetorical means polarizes the two figures and their messages. The Baptist is a protagonist more than a prophet in Luke’s retelling. Müller 2001, 197-199. 291 Josephus’ Antiquities does not mention any relation between John and Jesus. He describes two separate figures and his passage on Jesus (Ant. 18.63-64) is related before the description of John (Ant. 18.116-119). The question on the chronological order of their appearance is vague, as there can be days or years between the two figures’ appearances in Josephus’ account. Moreover, it is uncertain if testimonium flavianum has been inserted subsequently. Still, it is noteworthy that Josephus’ mention of John omits any allusion to Jesus. If the material here were later Christian interpolations one would expect the description of a link between the two figures. According to Mason “Josephus does not see John as a “figure in the Christian tradition.” The Baptist is not connected with early Christianity in any way.” See Mason 2003, 217. The problem for readers of the NT is that John the Baptist in the gospels unambiguously is described as 96 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 anticipated in a prequel which tells the annunciation and birth of John.292 I contend that the four gospels construed the Baptist figure as a character contemporary to Jesus of , who preceded and predicted the arrival of the anointed figure expected by contemporary Jews.293 The name of this theological construction is John the Baptist.294 Hereby I understand the theological redaction of the figure. In the overall perspective of Luke-Acts this figure is composed in contrast to the notion of a specific Christian baptism295 and with a new interpretation of the role of the Holy Spirit the forerunner of Jesus “the Messiah.” By contrast, Josephus’ Antiquities presents the Baptist “as a famous teacher with a message and a following of his own, neither of which is related to Jesus” in Mason’s analysis. Ibid, 217. 292 The Gospel of John has no prequel on John the Baptist’s childhood, but anticipates the question of the right hierarchy between John and Jesus in Jn 1:6-8. The Baptist makes testimony to Jesus in Jn 1:15-18, and John rejects explicitly that he should be himself the anointed one Jn 1:20; 3:28. These three themes are shared by Luke in special material Lk 1:13-17; Lk 1:76-77; Lk 3:16 and raise the question of a literary relationship between the Gospel of John and Luke. 293 It is from the use of the figure in the four canonical gospels that John the Baptist becomes a Christian figure. The Baptist figure could have absorbed other historical persons and failed messianic figures with a similar destiny in previous texts. Mason compares the description of important rebel figures in Antiquities with those mentioned in :25: “Luke knows about Josephus’s three most important rebel figures from the prewar period: Judas the Galilean, , and the prophet.” Mason 2003, 187. 294 Did Josephus know about John the Baptist (Ant. 18.116-119) from the gospels or from other lost sources? First of all can the narratives reciprocally shed light on how plastic such a figure as the baptizer was in the first centuries of C.E. Mason relates Josephus’ account to the gospels’ portrayals of the figure and he states that Josephus’ perspective is different from the gospels’ perspectives on the Baptist. Mason 2003, 225. Mason argues that Josephus “must be recounting a tradition, either oral or written” on John. Either did he know about a legend of the baptizer from childhood or he had access to a written source for the political history of the period which referred to John’s death. Ibid, 214. “In the case of too, much of the gospel material is well complemented by Josephus’ account. In particular, the gospel’s notice that the Baptist was imprisoned for criticizing the tetrarch’s marriage to his sister-in-law (:17) makes abundant sense.” Ibid, 160-161. “Josephus had Antipas arrest and execute John out of sheer self-interest (agreeing with Matt 14:5; Luke 3:19).” Ibid, 161. According to Mason it seems as if the author of Luke-Acts had Josephus’ story in mind concerning Agrippa (:21-23) “that he has adapted Josephus’ story for his own narrative purposes.” Ibid 163. Mason compares the five sources on John the Baptist and concludes that the figure seems to have been adopted by the evangelists to tell the origin of Jesus’ baptism: “the early Christian retelling of the story increasingly coopted John into the Christian story, gradually diminishing his own message and making him a prophet for the church.” Ibid, 222. 295 I shall use the term “the Messiah’s baptism” to describe what supersedes John’s baptism from Luke-Acts perspective. Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 97

(Chapter 7). John the Baptist can be considered a construct of the early Jesus movement.296 Luke’s double work expands on this narrative construct as well as on other gospel figures, such as Peter, and also on Paul, who becomes an early Christian figure in Acts. Historic-critical exegesis has disclosed that John the Baptist is a figure modelled by the gospel author’s tendencies.297 This approach presupposes that all the passages in the New Testament concerning the Baptist are coloured by a common preoccupation to exploit or neutralize the figure in favour of an early Christian interpretation. It is striking that Paul’s letters as the earliest material to Christian origins in the New Testament never mention the Baptist. The four canonical gospels and Josephus’ Antiquities refer both to John’s activity of baptizing and his proclamation of judgment and restoration. The five texts present John’s baptism as a symbolic event which recalls the exodus and conquest themes.298 Josephus differs from the gospels by separating the description of John from the description of Jesus,299 and consequently John’s public ministry is not linked to a coming figure at all. This is in opposition with the four gospels’ stress on John’s explicit proclamation of an expected figure.300

296 In Joan E. Taylor’s work on John the Baptist she situates the figure within Second Temple Judaism. She tends to treat the figure in its own historical context, studied separately from the form it takes in New Testament literature. Joan E. Taylor, John the Baptist: within Second Temple Judaism, (London: SPCK, 1997). 297 In 1911 Martin Dibelius first applies his technique of form criticism to gospel pericopes about John the Baptist. Although he deals with Q as probable, he initiates the basis of a new approach to gospel origins. In his analysis of the four gospels’ portraits of John the Baptist, he concludes that the different portraits were developed in an exegetical purpose, and were therefore not to be considered as historical reports. As a proponent of form criticism Dibelius studies the synoptic tradition by analogy with folk literature. In Martin Dibelius, Die Urchristliche Überlieferung von Johannes dem Täufer, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 15 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht, 1911), 15. For a tendency critical approach to the figure see also Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 247. And in a perspective on the historical Jesus see John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus II. Mentor, Message, and Miracles, (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 102. 298 In a socio-historical approach Robert L. Webb assesses that “John’s ministry was associated with the wilderness and Jordan, and it is possible that the people coming to be baptized in the Jordan were also enacting a symbolic event in which they anticipated the repossession and cleansing of the land by the expected figure.” Webb 1991, 377. 299 This distinction presupposes that Ant. 18.116-119 is original from Josephus’ hand and not a later interpolation. 300 Compared to Paul’s letters not mentioning the Baptist, and to Josephus’ Antiquities separating John and Jesus, Mark is the first source that links the two figures. 98 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

The annunciation and birth narrative on John the Baptist characterizes Luke’s theological reconstruction of the figure. Luke does not organize a prequel301 from zero, but builds his portrait on information gathered from Mark and Matthew, and perhaps from John.302 From a historical point of view there are several problems, as mentioned above: was John the Baptist a historical figure? Did he make a testimony about Jesus, and did he baptize Jesus? The gospels and Josephus provide us with no definitive answer to these questions. From a historical perspective they therefore remain unanswered. Part of this portrait is due to early Christian interpretations, which have leaved a strand in the Lukan double work. The Lukan narrative on the Baptist is reorganized according to a new thematical agenda. The evangelist behind it will put the economy of salvation right. He will show how the figure of John and Jesus respond to the promise given in Scripture. Like in Mark and Matthew, this is made visible on the background of the Elijah and Elisha figures,303 although in an alternative way.304 Luke develops narratively and expands upon which role the Baptist

301 This prequel does not render historical information. It is rather an example of narrative expansion as a typical trait in the practice of rewriting texts. Maurice Goguel’s title from 1928 stresses that John is situated at the entrance of the gospel as a “threshold” which it is necessary to cross, in Maurice Goguel, Au seuil de l’Evangile: Jean-Baptiste, (Paris: Seuil, 1979). 302 This position has been defended by Robert Morgan , Barbara Shellard, Niels Hyldahl and Mogens Müller. Mogens Müller’s argues “that Luke is the real Fourth Gospel and that it also has John among its predecessors”, which is supported by “the chronological argument that Luke and Acts are among the earliest (MM surely means “youngest”) books in the New Testament showing a greater distance to the apostolic era and familiarity to the apologetic finding its first identifiable representative in Justin.” In Müller 2012, 241-242. Morgan argues that “Luke’s very different solution to the problem of the Gospel form is intelligible as a reaction against the historical unreality of [the Gospel of] John” in Morgan 1994, 23. Barbara Shellard’s argues “that Luke, as well as using Mark and Matthew, in addition used John. He did so mainly for narrative purposes” in Barbara Shellard, “The Relationship of Luke and John: A Fresh Look at an Old Problem” in JTS 46/1, (1995), 71-98, 96; Shellard maintains that Lukan priority to John is unproven and argues “the evidence suggests that Luke is attempting to reconcile conflicting Johannine and synoptic traditions; and the connections between Luke and John are at least as close as those linking Luke with Mark/Matthew.” Ibid, 79. They all argue in favor of a late dating of Luke-Acts (3.1.2.). See Morgan 1994, 9; Shellard 1995, 79; Hyldahl 2010, 80. 303 Elijah and Elisha as types for John and Jesus see 5.2.2. John A. T. Robinson, “Elijah, John and Jesus: An Essay in Detection.” NST 4/4 (1958), 263-281. Brodie 2000, 79-97. 304 Compared to Mark and Matthew, Luke downplays the Elijah on the Baptist and transfers it on Jesus. Brodie argues that Luke-Acts shares central themes and basic structures with the Elijah-Elisha narrative: “Luke-Acts has a special emphasis on themes that are foundational to the Elijah-Elisha narrative: the role of prophecy and the Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 99 character has come to play in salvation history. Luke is a transmitter of tradition but he is also a theologian. His aim is to offer one specific interpretation of the role John plays in relation to Jesus.

4.2. Who is John the Baptist in Luke-Acts? The practice of rewriting texts and offering the retelling as an authorial composition was common in antiquity. There is a leap between the question of the past and the question of truth.305 When Luke tells more than Mark, Matthew and John about the Baptist figure it is not necessarily because its author had access to more information. He does so, because he is driven by a need to expand upon his narrative. In the following survey of John the Baptist in the Lukan double work, I shall distinguish between four sections about the figure in Luke’s Gospel and one in Acts. I have chosen to deal with five sections respecting the occurrences of material on John the Baptist in Luke/Acts. It can be summarized as follows306:

A 1. The annunciation of the conception, birth and naming of John made to Zechariah. Elizabeth conceives the child (Lk 1:5-25) 2. John’s miraculous conception revealed to Mary (Lk 1:36) 3. Mary visits Elizabeth who is pregnant with John (Lk 1:39-45) 4. The birth of John, Zechariah unveils his name and prophesies (Lk 1:57-79) 5. John grows up in the wilderness (Lk 1:80) word. More than in other Gospels, Jesus is the prophet. And Acts, to a significant degree, is a history of the word.” Brodie 2000, 83. 305 Watson assesses the weak points at the origin of the 2SH as the quest of “The Lost Original.” Q’s quest on Jesus of Nazareth and on the essence of Christianity is in a distant relation to the extant canonical gospels, each gospel taken individually, and as a collection. Watson sees an antagonism between Q’s ideological quest for an un- interpreted object and the actual fourfold gospel as a textual support to literary and historical study. He stresses: “The question is whether an alternative account of gospel origins can be envisaged, in which the unfolding processes of reception and interpretation, normatively articulated in the fourfold canonical collection, are construed as something other than a decline into untruth and illusion.” In Watson 2013, 113. 306 Robert L. Webb is the author of a similar list without separation in sections, in Webb 1991, 61-62. His model is useful to get an overview of the Baptist portrait, but he counts an occurrence of John baptizing Jesus. It is my opinion that this point makes the text say something it does not say. Lk 3:21-22 precisely marks the beginning of Luke’s narrative on Jesus public ministry. That Luke excludes John either for stylistic, ideological or chronological purposes does not permit to count this verse as concerning John the Baptist. 100 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

B 6. John preaches a baptism of repentance (Lk 3:1-6, compare Mk 1:2, Mt 1:1-3; 5) 7. John preaches repentance and imminent judgment (Lk 3:7-9, compare Mt 3:7-10)307 8. John replies to questioners on ethical questions (Lk 3:10-14) 9. John announces a coming figure ( Lk 3:15-18, compare Mk 1:7 and Mt 3:11-12) 10. John is imprisoned by Herod (Lk 3:19-20, compare as a narrative anticipation of Mk 1:14 and Mt. 4:12, and of Mk 6:17-18 and Mt 14:3-4)308 C 11. Jesus comments on John’s practice of (Lk 5:33-38, compare Mk 2:18-22, Mt 9:14-17) 12. John questions Jesus identity (Lk 7:18-23, compare Mt 11:2-6) 13. Jesus testifies concerning John (Lk 7:24-28, compare Mt 11:7-11) 14. The people have accepted John’s baptism, but the and Scribes have not (Lk 7:29-30) 15. Jesus describes responses to John and himself (Lk 7:31-35, compare Mt 11:16-19)

D 16. Public opinions concerning Jesus and Herod’s opinion in light of having imprisoned and executed John (Lk 9:7-9, compare Mk 6:14- 16, Mt 14:1-2) 17. Public opinions concerning Jesus (confused with John the Baptist, Elijah or one of the ancient prophets that has arisen) and Peter’s confession of him as Messiah ( Lk 9:18-21, compare Mk 8:27-30, Mt 16:13-23) 18. Jesus’ disciples ask to be taught to pray like John’s disciples (Lk 11:1) 19. Jesus relates John to the period of the Law and Prophets (and to the Kingdom?) (Lk 16:16, compare Mt 11:12f)

307 Luke 3:7-9 is non-Markan material common to Matthew 3:7-10 in same context and inserted in the same Markan order. The 2SH therefore explains it as a Q/Mark overlap, which according to Sanders is the 2SH’s second Achille’s heel. Sanders 1989, 79. See 2.1.4. 308 The Gospel of John contradicts the Synoptics on the point that John has been put to prison before Jesus begins his public ministry: “For John had not yet been thrown into prison” in John 3:24. Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 101

20. Jesus argues on the authority of John’s Baptism (Lk 20:1-8, compare Mk 11:27-33, Mt 21:23-27)

E 21. Jesus distinguishes between John’s baptism with water, and the baptism with the Holy Spirit that will be given to the disciples in the name of Christ (Acts 1:5, refers to Lk 3:16) 22. The new apostle chosen was to have been with the disciples from John’s baptism (Acts 1:21-22) 23. Peter explains that the gospel began after John’s baptism (:37) 24. Peter remembers Jesus’ distinction between John’s baptism and Jesus’ promise about disciples being baptized with the Holy Spirit (:16, refers to Acts 1:5) 25. Paul summarizes John’s preaching a baptism of repentance and a coming figure (:24-25) 26. preaches Jesus, but knows only John’s baptism (:25, the conversion of John’s disciples including Apollos) 27. Paul meets disciples in Ephesus who have only received John’s baptism (:1-7)

In the gospel the first 20 pericopae may be considered in four parts, A-D, while the last 7 pericopae in Acts constitute the fifth part, E. Part A and part E have no parallels in Mark and Matthew. In this general approach to the five blocks on John in Luke/Acts, Luke shares three blocks (B-D) with Mark and Matthew. These three blocks have common material and a thematic coherence. Luke did not invent a fundamental new portrait of the Baptist, but he did reshape it by adding a prequel and a continuation in A and E, respectively. The five blocks can be summarized as follows: Annunciation and Birth (A), which is the prequel on John. The Public Ministry (B), where the figure is portrayed in action. Captivity (C) refers to Jesus and John as contrasting figures, while the figure of John is imprisoned and absent. Post Mortem in Luke (D) refers to opinions on the defunct Baptist. Post Mortem in Acts (E) alludes to the role of John’s baptism in the history of salvation. The occurrences in Acts treat John as a figure from a recent historical past. My purpose is to isolate the literary and ideological aspects309 of the modifications310 in the depiction of John the Baptist in Luke-Acts. The

309 It is not ideology in the sense of propaganda of dogmatical sentences. It is rather interpretation according to the main strands of the Lukan narrative. This interpretive aspect is disclosed in Luke’s modifications of the Baptist portrait. Literary aspects of 102 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 distinction between literary and ideological aspects is artificial, in literature they are interwoven. This distinction is useful in order to introduce the analysis, but the different aspects shall be evaluated in relation to each other. Here I refer to Genette’s notion of hypertextuality which is comparable to the results of rewritten Scripture studies. Both are approaches to how interpretation interplays with the presentation of the rewriting. In the following analysis (chapter 5 to 7) focus will be on Luke 3:1-20 and its parallels to Mark and Matthew. Concerning this narrative sequence on the Baptist’s public ministry, I contend that a plurality of sources should not be posited without necessity with respect to the principle of Occam’s razor.311 I will argue that there are literary and ideological aspects indicating a “new relationship” between Matthew and Luke.312 A focus on literary aspects concerning John the Baptist is useful in order to evaluate the possible relationship between Matthew as hypotext and Luke as hypertext. Literary and ideological aspects in the rewritten portrait indicate how a hypertext relates to a hypotext. If we discover that the Lukan narrative carefully reshapes the Baptist portrait compared to Matthew, we ought to consider his motives behind the modifications. Before my analysis of literary and ideological changes John’s public ministry in Luke 3:1-20 I shall comment upon the five sections on John and

modifications are visible in Luke’s presentation, while the ideological aspects of modifications are the result of Luke’s interpretation in reading and rewriting predecessors. Therefore ideological aspects cover the new perspective Luke proposes through his changes of literary aspects and through his rewriting. 310 Fitzmyer assesses that Luke contains redactional modifications of the Marcan source on Jesus’ baptism. Fitzmyer 1981, 479. He compares Luke’s account with Mark’s and argues that Luke reorganizes the narrative according to a new interpretation of Jesus’ baptism. Fitzmyer questions two aspects “the implication of Jesus’ baptism” in the episode told in Luke 3:21-22 and “the relation of the baptism scene to Lucan theology as a whole.” Fitzmyer 1981, 481-482. He also compares the scene with Matthew 3:16- 17, but as he presupposes the 2SH he does not evaluate if Luke makes redactional modifications of the Matthean source. Ibid, 481. 311 Occam’s razor is a principle of simplicity or economy. According to this lex parsimoniae, plurality should not be posited without necessity. 312 It is a new relationship in the sense that most commentaries on Luke presuppose the 2SH as I shall give examples of in my analysis. Fitzmyer, for example, recognizes Luke’s redactional “modification of preexistent source-material.” Fitzmyer 1981, xii. He recognizes that “Practically all commentators on the Lucan Gospel are agreed that its author not only knew but made use of earlier gospel compositions in his writing the story of Jesus.” Ibid, 65. Still he posit three main sources and regards Luke as “dependent on the Marcan source (“MK”), the source “Q,” and a source, not necessarily written, which is called “L”.” Ibid 66. Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 103 his baptism in Luke-Acts. I present the sections from A to E with five thematic titles, which disclose the progression in the depiction of the character.

4.2.1. Annunciation and Birth (A) The first section on John in Luke describes the figure’s genesis (A 1.-5.). 313 It can be considered as a prequel to the narrative about John told in Mark and Matthew. Matthew and Luke both have prequels on Jesus’ origins, while Mark has no infancy story at all. Luke adheres to this textual strategy, which he shares with Matthew, and adds an infancy narrative on John the Baptist. Where Matthew tells about the unique annunciation and birth of Jesus, Luke imitates Matthew on this point. Luke tells the annunciation of Jesus, and adds a second annunciation story on John, which precedes the one on Jesus.314 In Luke, the Baptist enters into the infancy narrative on Jesus as it was initially told in Matthew.315

313 I see a contrast between section A) and B) where the Baptist is described first as an announced figure and next in action. This can be read in light of the antique distinction between action and character. In his Poetics Aristotle emphasizes, that tragedy gives priority to the representation of action over character, and the latter is therefore included for the sake of the former. Aristotle, Poetics VI (edito maior of the Greek text with historical introductions and philological commentaries by Leonardo Tarán and D. Gutas), (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012). See Frank Kermode, The Genesis of Secrecy: on the Interpretation of Narrative, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 81; Cf. Barthes 1966, p 15. This means that every character is reduced to an actant in the relation between character and narrative structure. The actant has no being except in relation to a plot. John Jones argues in line with Aristotle’s principle that the character serves action. John Jones, On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy, (London: Chatto & Windus, 1962), 31. 314 An objection to this proposition is that Matthew and Luke treat the infancy story as a preface to the main story, and as neither of these two, nor the rest of the New Testament alludes to it again it may be assumed that it is a secondary accretion. See the discussion in Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, a Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke, (New York: Doubleday, 1993). Brown discusses pre-Matthean material in the birth-narrative (p 110) and contends a plurality of sources for a part of the Lukan infancy narrative (p 244). It is striking that Brown treats the Matthean and Lukan birth-narratives separately. This approach avoids considering the two as concurrent narratives, and in this sense it relies on the 2SH’s presupposition on Matthew’s and Luke’s independence, although Brown compares the two genealogies (p 84-95). Brown defends the infancy narratives as vehicles of each evangelist’s theology “To give them less value than other parts of the Gospels is to misread the mind of the evangelists for whom the infancy narratives were fitting vehicles of a message they wanted to convey.” Ibid, 38. 315 Evans stresses that Luke, “like Matthew, (…) has carried the gospel story further back than Mark”, without evaluating a literary dependence between the two. Evans 1990, 228. Both Matthew and Luke give a pre-history on the birth of Jesus (expanded 104 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

In the first block (A) Luke tells the annunciation made to Zechariah, and the story of Elizabeth’s pregnancy while Mary comes to visit her, and of John’s birth and childhood until his life in the wilderness. A prequel about a literary figure is a characteristic trait of development in rewritten Scripture.316 Several Jewish authors at the turn of the Common Era shared an interest in telling the birth and childhood of great men.317 Information about a mythical or historical figure’s background was added or developed after this person had become a subject of interest. It is a common quest to obtain knowledge on the origin. Similar stories could be told about the origin of a dynasty, a religion or a people. Luke is the only gospel that is “supplementing back” on the story of John the Baptist telling about his birth.318 While he describes an annunciation and a birth, we can consider that he tends to describe at the same time an origin. He begins his account

by Luke on the birth of John) and both start again by telling the preaching and baptism of John (from Mk 1:2) before telling the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. It is therefore possible that Luke 1 and 3 imitates and transposes Matthew 1 and 3 by rewriting it. 316 Vermes argues that “infancy stories belong to the well-defined class of midrashic literature” in Vermes 1961, 90. Brown condemns the identification of midrash with fiction: “The purpose of midrash was to make the OT account intelligible, and that is not the purpose of the infancy narratives. They were written to make Jesus’ origins intelligible against the background of the fulfillment of OT expectations.” Brown 1993, 37. Kermode remarks that there is nothing unreasonable about this identification, and that a secular critic may speculate more freely about it. Kermode 1979, 83. 317 Charles Perrot, “Les récits d’enfance dans la Haggada antérieure au IIe siècle de notre ère,” RSR 55/4, 1967, 481-518, 481-82. More recently Brown has dealt with the same question in Brown 1993. Clivaz argues that the expression “Evangiles d’Enfance” is a French term applied on Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2. Elsewhere the term concerns pseudepigraphical gospels with birth narratives such as the Protoevangelium of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Claire Clivaz, A. Dettwiler, L. Devilliers and E. Norelli (eds.) Infancy Gospels: Stories and Identities, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 16-17. 318 Kermode argues that the narrative on Judas in the Gospel of John is “supplementing back” on the figure: “The necessity, in a circumstantial and history-like story, of having a character to perform the Betrayal is obvious enough.” Kermode 1979, 84. In his analysis the Betrayal becomes Judas and he implicitly says that the evangelists were imaginative writers. Ibid, 78. Kermode takes up Auerbach’s concept of figure in narratives in E. Auerbach, Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur [1946], (Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag, 2001). Alter is the heir of Auerbach and Kermode. His work is centered on OT narratives. See Robert Alter, Canon and Creativity: Modern Writing and the Authority of Scripture. (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2000). Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 105 of the foundation of Christianity by describing the roots it has in Judaism and in Jewish Scripture.319 There is a link between the OT- stories about the birth of Ismael, Samson, Immanuel and Samuel in Gen 16:11-12; Judg 13:5,13; Isa 7:14-17 and 1 Sam 1:20,22, and the Matthean annunciation story about Jesus (Mt 1:20) and the Lukan double annunciation story about John and Jesus (Lk 1:31-32). The evangelists make allusion to the OT birth narratives mentioned above. There is a common narrative structure in the way to tell of the conception and birth of a biblical figure. And in the case of Luke 1:13-17 telling the annunciation made to Zechariah there is also reuse of a narrative motif with a bare woman who becomes pregnant (Lk 1:79 compare Gen 16:1; Gen 17:16,19-20).320 Both reuse and rewriting belong to the umbrella category of transtextuality. I contend that Luke like Matthew reuses an OT- annunciation motive, and that Luke moreover is an expansion and alteration of the Matthean birth narrative. An example on how the gospels belong to the genre of hypertexts is found in Martin Kähler. He did not theorize on biblical rewritings neither on hypertextualty, although he had the intuition to define the gospels as “passion narratives with extended introductions.”321

319 Luke’s textual strategy integrates historical, narrative and biblical roots in a new narrative in a similar way as rewritten Scripture. Thomas Römer and Jean-Daniel Macchi argue that the evangelist Luke is influenced by the deuteronomistic style, which they explain as a “large current of thought spreading across the whole of Israelite intellectual history from the Assyrian period tight up to the first centuries of the Christian era.” In Thomas Römer and J. D. Macchi “Luke, Disciple of the Deuteronomistic School” in Christopher Tuckett (ed.) Luke’s Literary Achievement: Collected Essays, (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 178-187, 180. They stress that the “fact that he is the only evangelist to supplement his Gospel with a ‘historiography’ could be the first indication of deuteronomistic influence.” Ibid, 181. They argue that Luke shares a literary strategy with the Deuteronomists. This strategy engages the reader in a “dynamic hermeneutic.” Ibid, 182. 320 Charles Perrot suggested that an oral tradition behind the Matthean infancy narrative developed in the synagogue, in Jewish-Christian homiletical reflection. He argued that this narrative was an example of midrash. Perrot 1967, 515-518. Davies and Allison are critical to deal with the birth narrative as midrash. They argue on Mt 1-2 that “Because the formula quotations are secondary, and because more was involved in the production of 1.18-2.23 than reflection on Scripture, the narrative is not properly designated ‘midrash’ – if - and this is debatable - that term be taken to mean that the OT is the constant point of reference. Rather is the infancy narrative a Christian story inspired by popular Jewish haggadic traditions.” Davies 1988, 195. 321 “Etwas herausfordernd könnte man sie Passionsgeschichten mit ausführlicher Einleitung nennen.” In Martin Kähler, Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus, [1892] (Leipzig: A. Deichert, 1896), 59. 106 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Brown read Matthew and Luke as separate gospels having used a common source.322 He demonstrates parallels and resemblances between Matthew and Luke’s infancy stories, and he dresses a list with eleven points common to both narratives:

a) The parents to be are Mary and Joseph who are legally engaged or married, but have not yet come to live together or have sexual relations (Mt 1:18; Lk 1:27,34) b) Joseph is of Davidic descent (Mt 1:16,20; Lk 1:27,32; 2:4) c) There is an angelic announcement of the forthcoming birth of the child (Mt 1:20-23; Lk 1:30-35) d) The conception of the child by Mary is not through intercourse with her husband (Mt 1:20,23,25; Lk 1:34) e) The conception is through the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:18,20; Lk 1:35) f) There is a directive from the that the child is to be named Jesus (Mt 1:21; Lk 1:31) g) An angel states that Jesus is to be Savoir (Mt 1:21; Lk 2:11) h) The birth of the child takes place after the parents have come to live together (Mt 1:24-25; Lk 2:5-6) i) The birth takes place at Bethlehem (Mt 2:1; Lk 2:4-6) j) The birth is chronologically related to the reign (days) of (Mt 2:1; Lk 1:5) k) The child is reared at Nazareth (Mt 2:23; Lk 2:39)323

It is striking that the first ten points (of eleven) all are found in one section of the Matthean narrative which is Mt 1:18-2:1. Compared with this fact, I assert that Luke expands this Matthean section and changes the receiver of the annunciation from Joseph to Maria.324 It is noteworthy that Brown asks: “If originally there was one narrative, how did it ever become fragmented into two different accounts we have now?”325 I maintain, on the contrary, that it is possible to read Luke’s double infancy story as a narrative

322 For the argument that Matthew’s and Luke’s infancy narratives are independent compositions see Perrot 1967, 510. Fitzmyer 1989, 34-35. 323 The list is cited from Brown 1993, 34-35. 324 Luke imitates the Matthean annunciation formula about Jesus’ birth adapted from OT annunciations, but rewrites it creatively. See Watson 2013, 132. The fact that Luke knows the names of Jesus’ parents could also be an indication of Lukan rewriting of Mt 1:18 (cf. Mk 6:3; Jn 1:45; 6:42). 325 Brown 1993, 35. Brown stresses the differences between the two infancy accounts as an argument against literary dependence between Matthew and Luke: “the two narratives are not only different- they are contrary to each other in a number of details.” Ibid, 36. Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 107 development of Matthew’s, rather than to presuppose a common lost narrative behind both gospels.326 Disagreement between two texts does not prove literary independence. Luke’s prequel also adds information on John’s origin, and this narrative expansion could indicate that Luke’s Gospel is a hypertext compared to Mark and Matthew as hypotexts.327 Genette states that hypertextuality is at the same time a universal aspect of literature itself, and a class of texts which rewrites other texts.

Certains romans (…) appartiennent à la fois à la classe reconnue de leur genre officiel et à celle, méconnue, des hypertextes; et comme toutes les catégories géneriques, l’hypertextualité se déclare le plus souvent au moyen d’un indice paratextuel qui a valeur contractuelle.328

In comparison, Luke both belongs to the genre of gospels and to the group of texts which rewrites previous texts. In this sense, Luke can be read as a hypertext and as a biblical rewriting, as well as it can be said to be biblical literature and a New Testament gospel. The Lukan prologue refers to previous accounts on which it improves and the evangelist hereby affirms a literary relation to predecessors (Lk 1:1-4). Luke also implicitly claims that it belongs to a narrative gospel tradition by retelling Jesus’ annunciation and birth narrative, and by retelling the beginning of John’s ministry by the Jordan. Luke is a biblical rewriting in the way it expands upon the baptizer’s origin. In the section on John’s annunciation and birth (with no parallels) the evangelist rewrites through narrative expansion.329 Contrary to this

326 The last of Fitzmyer’s six objections to Luke’s supposed dependence on Matthew asks: “why did Luke omit Matthean material in infancy and resurrection narratives lacking Marcan parallels?” Fitzmyer 1981, 75. In view of Brown’s list I should respond that Luke adopts a significant part of the Matthew birth narrative (Mt 1:18-2:1) and Luke moreover modifies Matthew’s version of Jesus’ genealogy (Mt 1:1-17). 327 There is not an exclusive relation between one single hypotext and its hypertext. A hypertext can rewrite more than one hypotext, although Genette states that he shall study the hypertextual praxis in its most explicit shape: “toute une œuvre B dérivant de toute un œuvre A.” Genette 1982, 18. In his analysis he gives examples of texts rewriting multiple hypotexts: “Ce mélange à doses variables de deux (ou plusieurs) hypotexts.” Ibid, 370. 328 Genette 1982, 17. 329 Enrico Norelli recognizes narrative development in Luke’s birth narrative similar to apocryphal birth narratives, but neglects to study Luke as a writing reader of Matthew. He argues “la part de la construction narrative est forte et, chez Luc, prépondérante.” Enrico Norelli, “Les plus anciennes traditions sur la naissance de Jésus et leur rapport avec les testimonia” in Clivaz 2011, 47-66, 65. 108 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 expansion, he will rewrite by condensation on John’s death compared to Mark and Matthew (B 10 in the preceding survey). Further indicators and examples of this interplay between hypo- and hypertexts are needed to actually qualify the claim that there exists a new relationship of literary dependence between Matthew and Luke. The further examples in what follows shall be taken into consideration in order to test a literary relationship.

4.2.2. Public Ministry (B) Luke’s second section on the Baptist is a description of the figure in action (B 6.-10.). This part on John the Baptist’s public ministry is the longest block in Luke’s gospel on this particular figure. Here Luke shares much material with both Mark and Matthew.330 The common material is interwoven into Luke’s specific organization, and about all of Luke 3 has parallels in Matthew.331 Except Luke’s rendering of the crowds messiah expectations to John (Lk 3:15 without synoptic parallels, compare John 1:20) and Luke’s material on John’s ethical preaching. Luke accentuates John’s actual action as a preacher who demands ethical correct behaviour as a condition to baptism (Lk 3:10-14, without parallels).332 Luke is the only one of the Synoptics to make explicit the question if John could be the Messiah in Lk 3:15,333 and Luke erases John’s action as baptizer of Jesus in

330 The Gospel of John proposes a different account on John the Baptist, but the story has a similar function as in the three Synoptics: to introduce the Baptist’s public ministry before introducing the public , and to tell the circumstances which precedes Jesus’ baptism. 331 Reading Luke 3:1-38 as rewritten Matthew 3:1-12; 14:3-4; 3:13-17, 1:1-17. 332 This can be compared to Josephus’ Antiquities “Josephus reduces the content of John’s preaching to the maxim “piety toward and toward one’s fellows.” This is Josephus’s usual way of describing Jewish ethical responsibility. Mason 2003, 214-215. Luke is the only gospel to elaborate on the kind of ethical behavior that was required in Lk 3:10-14. This can be seen in light of Josephus’s stress on justice toward companions. 333 Here Luke anticipates public opinions of Jesus and of Peter’s confession of Jesus as Messiah (in Lk 9:18-21, par. :27-30, Mt 16:13-23). In a later context after the Baptist is dead [,] the motif - if John could be Messiah - is treated in an inversed sense: could Jesus be the risen John the Baptist? When Luke describes the doubt about John’s identity preceding Jesus’ baptism scene, the context becomes a clear denial of such a proposition. Luke anticipates the question in order not to present the Baptist as a figure equivalent to Jesus. Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 109

3:19-22. 334 My main focus is on the Baptist figure in action (Luke 3:1-22) and chapter 5, 6 and 7 shall treat this section in details. In the construction of the gospel narrative John 1:6 and Luke 1:13, contrary to Mark and Matthew, both name and present John the Baptist as a man sent from God before mentioning Jesus.335 The syncrisis336 on John and Jesus indicates that the gospel narratives all four told about a ‘double’ to Jesus. When we ask for ideological aspects in the Lukan changes we must ask why the narrative tells about a ‘double’ to Jesus and expands the contrasts between the two figures. Luke creates differences through similitude. 337

4.2.3. Captivity (C) The issue of the third section is Jesus and John as competing figures (C 11.- 15.). The Baptist is described as a diminished prophet in opposition to the Messiah, and the narrative illustrates who of the two shall remain and be the most influent figure.338 John is in prison in this sequence. So the questions of Jesus’ identity compared to John are posed in a narrative context where John is no longer in action. In the Markan and Matthean versions John’s public ministry also is described as finished when these discussions are related.339 If :18-23 is a rewriting of Mt 11:2-6, then Luke erases the information given by Matthew, according to whom John poses his questions from the prison. As Luke has already given this information of John’s imprisonment (Lk 3:19-20), he does not repeat it

334 See Christina Solmunde Michelsen “Johannes Døber i et genskrevet evangelium” in Jesper Høgenhaven and M. Müller (eds.) Bibelske Genskrivninger (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2012), 239-251, 249. 335 John 1.1-5 refers to Jesus Christ in symbolic terms as the word, the life and the light of men, before introducing John as a man send from God in John 1.6. 336 Syncrisis is a rhetorical device that emphasizes the comparison of opposites. A narrative using syncrisis tells about similitudes between two figures to reveal at the same time the contrasts. Jozef Verheyden, “Creating Difference through Parallelism: Luke’s Handling of Traditions on John the Baptist and Jesus in the Infancy Narrative” in Clivaz 2011, 137-160. 337 Robert C. Tannehill investigates on “parallels between Luke and Acts” and on schema of parallels which appear within Luke. Tannehill, Robert C. The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts. A Literary Interpretation.1. The Gospel according to Luke. 2. The , (Philadelphia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1986), 50. 338 A discussion of their respective roles is relevant to Luke’s overall theological agenda. It shall not be discussed here. 339 John’s imprisonment is related to a later context after the temptation of Jesus in Mt 4:12, Mk 1:14 compared to Lk 3:19-20. 110 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 here.340 Consequently, this third part becomes a description of John in absentia. And the question behind this narrative is: Who is the great prophet or the one people are waiting for? Is it the imprisoned John, or is it Jesus who is making miracles? The contrast between the actions of the two protagonists is accentuated. The section on the absent Baptist figure is very similar in Matthew and Luke. The omission of the location in Lk 7:18, and the question on who receives and who refuses John’s Baptism (Lk 7:29- 30)341 is special material in Luke. The dialogue between John in prison and Jesus in the third part, is made possible thanks to the disciples.342 The main difference between Matthew and Luke remains that Luke anticipates John’s imprisonment, therefore the figure leaves the public scene already in Lk 3:19-20 (Chapter 7). This anticipation indicates that Luke deals with both connection and difference between John and Jesus. The Matthean material about John the Baptist in absentia has been developed, omitted and adapted in Luke. The evangelist establishes and maintains a specific chronological and theological separation between the two figures by rearranging Matthew’s material on John the Baptist.

4.2.4. Post Mortem in Luke (D) The fourth section of occurrences concerns the opinions on John expressed after his death (D 16.-20.). These are mentions dispersed in different contexts.343 They disclose the importance for Luke to relate John to the period of the Law and Prophets which precedes the announcement on ‘God’s Kingdom’.344 These sayings contain opinions concerning the deceased John: who was he? In Luke’s version (special material) John taught his disciples to pray, he was the last prophet, and John’s baptism had a relative authority. Lk 9:7-9 does not tell the martyrdom of John the Baptist. This particular passage in Luke can be read as reserved and condensed material in an approach to Luke as a creative reworking of Mk 6:14-16 and Mt 14:1-12.345

340 Matthew 11:2 repeats that John is in prison although the information on John’s imprisonment has been given in Mt. 4.12. 341 With regard to Lk 20:1-8 and Mt 21:23-27, Lk 7:29-30 is a rewriting of Mt 21:32. 342 Again a separation between the figures is maintained in Luke, and compared to Mark and Matthew, it is striking that in Luke’s work there is never a direct dialogue between Jesus and John the Baptist. When the pregnant Mary comes to the pregnant Elizabeth Luke describes another indirect meeting between the two protagonists. 343 Section D) includes Lk 9:7-9, Lk 9:18-20, Lk 11:1, Lk 16:16, Lk 20:1-8. 344 Compare Mt 11.12f. 345 In the occurrences on John post mortem Mark and Matthew refer to a decapitated Baptist while Luke refers to a deceased figure. It is noteworthy that Luke on this point Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 111

4.2.5. Post Mortem in Acts (E) In Acts there is not a separate section on John the Baptist. There are, however, dispersed mentions of John’s baptism (E 21.-27.). The concept of this passed baptism is based upon the last mention on John in Lk 20:1-8 (et par.). It is an inferior baptism, the authority of which has been superseded. Acts tends to explain the right chronology in the history of salvation and John’s role in this story. After having presented the Messiah’s Baptism (in Acts 2:38)346 Acts mainly refers to John’s inferior baptism: only once does Acts mention John’s preaching a baptism of repentance and of a coming figure (Acts 19:4). Acts tells us “what is left” of John the Baptist’s heritage. The imperfect and partial John’s baptism becomes a past station in Acts’ perspective, which is an expansion of the salvation history begun in Luke. As a result, the Lukan double work actually describes three different baptisms: The third kind of baptism is the Messiah’s baptism347 and it is distinguished from John’s baptism Lk 3:3348 and Jesus’ unique baptism Lk 3.21-22.

4.3. Concluding remarks On the basis of these 27 pericopae in Luke-Acts which concern the Baptist figure I assert that John the Baptist as a figure and John’s baptism as a theme is developed in Luke-Acts compared to Mark and Matthew. An analysis of the additions, omissions and rearrangements in the Lukan double work indicate the portrait of a past figure and the theme on an more agrees with Josephus’ account on John’s death. Josephus mentions the Baptist’s death in a flashback, while discussing the defeat of Antipas. Ant. 18.116-119. 346 Matthew presents the Messiah’s Baptism in Mt 28:18-20, which Luke omits, while Acts 2:38 presents the Matthean account on (what I read as) a beginning Christian baptism tradition as reserved and adapted material. Green reads this post resurrection baptism in Acts as “the Messiah’s baptism.” Green 1997, 181. Evans defines the baptism described in Acts 2:38 as a “Christian baptism.” Evans 1990, 237. See 7.3. 347 Grundmann states “Die Tauferzählung hat darüber hinaus ihre Stelle in der Gesamtkonzeption des Lukas.” Grundmann 1978, 107. He argues, moreover, that Jesus’ baptism in the Holy Spirit in Luke 3:21-22 is described as an archetype baptism for early Christianity: “Lukas spricht vom Heiligen Geist, der auf ihn herabkommt, und stellt damit die Taufe Jesu als die erste Geisttaufe dar; in ihr hat die Taufe der Christenheit iht Urbild.” Ibid, 108. I shall argue that both John’s and Jesus’ baptisms take a new meaning in light of Luke’s expansion on the Messiah’s Baptism in Acts 2:38. 348 The distinction between John’s baptism (with water) and the Messiah’s Baptism “with the Holy Spirit” is shared by Mk 1:7-8, Mt 3:11-12 and Lk 3:17. The Gospel of John describes the quality of John’s baptism but does not mention a second baptism in Jn 1:24-28. By contrast, John describes a competing baptism activity between Jesus and John with their disciples in Jn 3:22-24. 112 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 inferior baptism. In a rewriting perspective those changes are examples of narrative development.349 The development of this theme is specific to Luke-Acts perspective and theological agenda. And there are indices that Luke rewrote Matthew rather than a theological more neutral urtext, which is supposed by the 2SH.350 In the following analysis of Luke 3:1-20 in chapter 5 to 7 I analyse the probability of a new relationship between Matthew and Luke. The frame of the analysis in chapter 5 to 7 is Luke 3:1-22, although only Luke 3:1-20 tells the proclamation of John the Baptist. I read the latter section as a narrative unit.351 The subsequent passage recounts Jesus’ baptism (Lk 3:21- 22) and belongs to a threefold unit (Lk 3:21-4:13), which in turn, introduces Jesus’ public ministry (from Lk 4:14).352 I shall demonstrate that

349 They characterize rewritten Bible texts according to Alexander’s point e) see 1.1.3. 350 Watson is right to describe the hypothetical urtext as “the lost original” as if it was the response to an ideological quest. Watson 2013, 99. 351 My analysis of the unit 3:1-20 on John’s ministry respects the narrative rupture in Luke 3 between John’s ministry and the introduction of Jesus’ ministry from 3:21. From 3:21 Luke indicates an exclusive focus on Jesus. My analysis treats Lk 3:1-20 under the section heading “the proclamation of John the Baptist” and Lk 3:21-22 under the distinct section heading “Jesus’ baptism scene.” Goulder reads the latter under a section on “Jesus’ Baptism and Genealogy” 3:21-38, and 3:1-20 on “The Preaching of the Baptist” Goulder 1989, 270, 281. By contrast, Bovon reads Luke 3:1-22 as a section on “L’activité de Jean Baptiste et le Baptême de Jésus.” Bovon 1991, 160-179. Fitzmyer reads “the Imprisonment of John” and “the Baptism of Jesus” under the same section “II. The Preparation for the Public Ministry of Jesus” from 3:1-4:13. Fitzmyer 1981, 449-520. Fitzmyer includes the latter figure in the action of the former, although he divides the section in six subsections, three on the Baptist (3:1-6), his preaching (3:7- 18) and his imprisonment (3:19-20) and three on Jesus’ Baptism (3:21-22), Jesus’ Genealogy (3:23-38) and the temptation in the Desert (4:1-13). The beginning of Jesus’ Ministry is first taken into account from Lk 4:14-15. Evans follows Fitzmyer. He reads Lk 3:1-4:13 on “The Prophetic Mission of John as the Forerunner and the Installation of Jesus as the Son of God.” Evans 1990, 228f. But he distinguishes “The Prophetic Ministry of John” Lk 3:1-20 from “The Divine Empowering of Jesus” Lk 3:21-22 Ibid 245, and he refers to the genealogy in Lk 3:23-38 as the “The legitimation of Jesus as Son of God.” Ibid 250. Green reads Lk 3:1-4:13 as one section on “The Preparation for the Ministry of Jesus.” He reads this section as two subsequent narrative entities on “The Ministry of John” (3:1-20) and “The Introduction of Jesus” (3:21-4:13). Green 1997, 159f. Goulder and Green recognize that there is a narrative rupture in Luke 3 between 3:20 and 3:21. 352 Darrell L. Bock reads Lk 3:21-4:13 as a threefold introduction to Jesus’ ministry. Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50, (Grand Rapids (Mich.): Baker Books, 1994), 331. I read this threefold introduction as a Lukan rewriting of Matthew on Jesus’ Baptism (3:21-22 compare Mt 3:16-17), the (3:23-38 compare Mt 1:1-17) and Jesus’ temptation by the devil (4:1-13 compare Mt 4:1-11). Green reads Lk 3:1- 4:13 as one section on “The Preparation for the Ministry of Jesus.” Like Bock, Green Chapter 4: A Rewriting Perspective on John the Baptist in Luke-Acts 113 some commentaries agree with Conzelmann in seeing a separation between John’s ministry and Jesus’ baptism in Luke’s account. Yet, problematically they do not adapt or modify their source critical assumptions inherited from the 2SH to this new redactional critical perspective on Luke’s creativity.

reads this section as two subsequent narrative entities on first “The Ministry of John” (3:1-20) and next “The Introduction of Jesus” (3:21-4:13). Green 1997, 159f.

Chapter 5 Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2)

5.1. Introductory The following analysis distinguishes between literary and ideological aspects of Luke’s Baptist portrait. There are three striking literary changes in Luke’s account on the public ministry of John353 Lk 3:1-20 compared to Mt 3:1-17 (cf. Mk 1:2-11):

1) Luke modifies the Baptist’s name to “John the son of Zechariah” in Lk 3:2 and simply “John” in the narrator’s perspective354 (AM)355 2) The meeting between John and Jesus related in Mt 3:13-15 is omitted in Luke’s account of John’s public ministry and anticipated in Lk 1:43 as reserved material (OM and RM). 3) Lk 3:19-20 anticipates John’s imprisonment and omits his martyrdom (RM and OM). The location and the baptizer are omitted from Jesus’ baptism scene in Lk 3:21-22 (OM).

I shall analyse these literary and ideological changes as modifications made to Mt 3:1-17, and relate them to Luke’s new perspective on John’s identity (Chapter 5), John’s authority (Chapter 6), and John’s baptism (Chapter 7). Luke has narratively excluded John from Jesus’ baptism scene, just as Jesus is made absent from the scene of John’s ‘preaching a baptism of repentance’ (Lk 3:2-3). What Mark and Matthew introduce as one narrative section on the baptizer and his meeting with Jesus, Luke 3 separates into two distinguished narratives, the first one on John Lk 3:1-20, and the second on Jesus Lk 3:21-37.356 The fact that Acts 10:37-38 and 13:24-25 agree with Lk 3:21-22 not to mention if John baptized Jesus challenges Mark’s and Matthew’s proposition that Jesus’ baptism scene should be a transition from John’s to Jesus ministry (Mk 1:9-10 and Mt 3:13-17). I read Luke’s literary changes in his description of the Baptist in light of this thematic coherence between Luke and Acts. In Luke’s recasting of Jesus’

353 John’s “public appearance to Israel” is first announced in the Lukan narrative Lk 1:80. This information anticipates the content on John which Lk 3 shares with Mk 1 and Mt 3. 354 Lk 3:15,20 compare Mk 1:4 and Mt 3:1. 355 AM, NM, and OM are examples of literary changes in a hypertext compared to its hypotext. See 3.1.3. 356 Bovon reads Lk 3:21-22 as belonging to and closing the section on John. Bovon 1991, 160. The frame of my analysis (Lk 3:1-22) exceeds the narrative unit on the baptizer’s minitry (Lk 3:1-20), because my aim is to compare it to Mk 1:2-11 and Mt 3:1-17. 116 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 baptism, an active John is no longer part of the story. Following the hypothesis which Goulder introduces in his commentary, I argue that Luke’s textual strategy appears in the way he (Lk 3:1-4:14) rewrites “Matthew’s expanded version of Mark” 357 (Mt 3:1-4:12 and Mk 1:2-14) on John’s ministry and on the introduction to Jesus’ ministry. According to the 2SH, Luke has Mark and a lost source in front of him for his portrait of John. I hold that Luke rather has Mark and the Matthean rewriting of Mark in front of him in his reorganized narrative on John and Jesus. This chapter shall examine how Luke omits “the Baptist” to the name of John and hereby modifies the interpretation of John’s identity. This is the first example of a literary change in Luke’s introduction to John’s public ministry compared to that of Mark and Matthew. The chapter opens with a survey of the occurrences of the baptizer’s name in Luke (5.1.1.) and how John’s role as a preacher is accentuated (5.1.2.). This is followed by a comparative study of two various approaches to how Luke’s emerges from his predecessors (5.2). The final part of this section discusses in what degree John can be said to be a past figure in Luke-Acts’ over-all literary frame (5.2.2).

5.1.1. The Modified Name in Lk 3:2 Compared to Mt 3:1 (AM) In Luke-Acts, the figure is never ’John the Baptist’ in the implied narrator’s perspective.358 Luke primarily deals with the baptizer as ‘John’. The first time Luke evokes the figure is when the angel announces John’s birth: ‘…and you will name him John (’Ιωάννην)’ (Lk 1:13). In the section Lk 3:1-20 on the baptizer’s public ministry, Luke modifies Mark and Matthew and presents the figure in accordance with what precedes in the Lukan narrative: ‘In the fifteenth year (…) the word of God came to John son of Zechariah (’Ιωάννην τὸν Ζαχαρίου υἱὸν) in the wilderness’ (Lk 3:1-2). By comparison, Matthew introduces his narrative on the Baptist with: ‘In those days John the Baptist (’Ιωάννης ὁ βαπτιστής) appeared in the wilderness of , proclaiming…’ (Mt 3:1).359 Mark has ‘John the Baptizer (’Ιωάννης ὁ

357 Goulder argues that Luke follows Matthew from Lk 3:1-4:30: “It is indeed Lucan policy to follow one of his predecessors steadily for considerable periods when he can, and he does not in fact leave Matthew, if we except a few brief reminiscences, till Lk 4.30.” Goulder 1989, 270. 358 Luke is the only gospel with an explicit narrator in its prologue Lk 1:1-4. I compare how the narrators refer to the baptizer in the synoptic gospels. 359 Other occurrences of the full name ‘John the Baptist’ in Matthew are: Mt 11:11-12; Mt 14:2,8; Mt 16:14 (compare Lk 9:19) and Mt 17:13. In the last occurrence the Baptist responds a typology of Elisha (also Mt 11:15 refers to John as a new Elisha). Chapter 5: Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 117

βαπτίζων) appeared in the wilderness’ (Mk 1:4).360 Here Luke thus omits ‘the Baptist.’ Goulder has argued: “John is no more ‘the Baptist’ who ‘arrives’ (from heaven) preaching’; he is the son of Zechariah, as Luke has explained at length in ch. 1.” 361 Contrary to Luke, the narrator in both Mark and Matthew present the baptizer as John the Baptist. The Lukan double work has thirty-two occurrences of the baptizer’s name as ‘John’ all together, whereas only three times the figure is called ‘John the Baptist’ and not in the narrator’s perspective. First, the entire name is pronounced by John’s disciples (Lk 7:20), second, by Jesus (Lk 7:33), and finally, Jesus’ disciples refer to the baptizer by the entire name (Lk 9:19).362 In the gospel, John is a figure among other figures which play their different roles in the narrative on Jesus. In Acts, this figure becomes a time reference: ‘Beginning from the baptism of John until (…)’ (Acts 1:22). Acts tells about the fact that ‘John baptized’ (Acts 1:5; 11:16; 19:4) and ‘proclaimed a baptism’ (Acts 13:24), but the term ‘John’s baptism’ is dominant and refers to an inferior baptism (Acts 10:37; 18:25; 19:3). While the entire double work only has the name “John the Baptist” three times, the character seems to have been replaced by his function, an inferior baptism.363 Where Lk 1 announces a preparing function, Lk 3:1-20 describes the baptizer’s action by the River of Jordan, and Acts refers to a completed and past function. There is a play between the character and its action. The Aristotelian narrative principle that the action is prior to the character correspond the Lukan portrait of John. The Gospel of John mentions ‘John’ eighteen times and never has ‘John the Baptist’.364 To summarise, the Gospel of John and Luke prefer to refer to the baptizer as ‘John.’ In both gospels the name and the relation between John and Jesus have been evoked from the beginning of the narrative and even before John’s entry on the public scene (Jn 1:6-8 and Lk 1:17,76- 77).365 Mark and Matthew, by contrast, introduce the figure as an adult with authority before presenting the protagonist Jesus as an adult (Mk 1:4

360 Comparing Lk 3:2 to Mk 1:4 ‘John the baptizer … appeared in the wilderness’ it is striking that some ancient manuscripts read John was baptizing (Mk 1:4). The reading with ‘the baptizer,’ however, is well represented. When it is deselected it is probably according to the lectio brevior principle. Other occurrences of the full name in Mark are: Mk 6:14,25 and 8:28. 361 Goulder 1989, 270. 362 Remark the different readings of Lk 7:28 in Nestle-Aland. See the discussion of this text-critical question further below in this section. 363 See 7.3.2. 364 The Gospel of John mentions the Baptist figure as ‘John’ in Jn 1:6,15,19,26,28,29,32,35,40; 3:23,24,26,27; 4:1; 5:33,36; 10:40,41. 365 See Grundmann 1978, 107. 118 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 and Mt 3:1). John has played an important role in their narrative before Jesus enters the public scene as an adult.366 The Gospel of John and Luke, by contrast, introduce a distinction between the two figures before describing their respective careers. Luke’s annunciation narrative on John (Lk 1:16-17) and John’s prologue (Jn 1:6-9) both recount with priority that John’s role is to prepare the way for Jesus. Both gospels present the omniscience of their narrators on John’s role in relation to Jesus, which precedes their account on the inferior value of John’s baptism. In contrast to the first and second gospel, the authors behind John and Luke have chosen to anticipate and prepare an understanding of the figure. They explain in advance who John is in relation to Jesus and they both avoid telling if John baptizes Jesus.367 I read this as responses to what could have been a problem at the time when Luke and the Gospel of John were composed. One important difference remains: While the latter tells of competing baptism activity in the beginning of the gospel, Luke does not refer to any kind of mixing of John’s and Jesus’ ministries. Mark introduces John the Baptist by an erroneous Isaiah citation (Mk 1:2-3): ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way (κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου)…’ (Mk 1:2 in fact cites Mal 3:1 and only the following Mk 1:3 cites the prophet Isaiah). Both Matthew and Luke omit Mark’s Malachi citation from the beginning to a later context on the Baptist (OM). Thus they transpose Mark 1:2 to Mt 11:10 and Lk 7:27, where Jesus questions John’s identity in front of the crowds (RM).368 This agreement in omission is difficult to explain by a common lost source. On this point Matthew and Luke modify Mark’s account, reserve and insert it in a later context. Consequently, they share an interpretive strategy.369

366 Fitzmyer explains Luke’s omission of John’s name by harmonizing it with Mark and Matthew, and ignores that John never is the baptizer in Acts: “We have been introduced to John in the infancy narrative. In time Luke will call him by the name by which he has been known in tradition, “John the Baptist” (7:20).” Fitzmyer 1989, 451. In his socio- historical study of the baptizer, Webb argues that the references to John the Baptist in Acts “add nothing to our understanding of John himself, but they do help to fill out the early church’s interpretation of John, as presented by Luke.” Webb 1991, 67. Webb’s reading discloses an interest in what historical account could be behind Luke, while Fitzmyer minimizes the literary changes on the baptizer’s name throughout Luke-Acts. 367 The baptism of Jesus by John is not explicitly described in Jn 1:31-34. On the contrary, this sequence tells that John recognizes Jesus as the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. See Webb 1994, 215. 368 Goulder argues that the postponement of the citation is an argument against Q, and not a coincidence between Luke and Matthew. In Goulder 1989 271. 369 This agreement in omission contradicts Fitzmyer’s fourth objection to Luke’s dependence on Matthew. Luke here respects Matthew’s order, and not only respects the order of the Markan source. Fitzmyer 1981, 74. Chapter 5: Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 119

Both have narratively expanded upon Mark’s presentation of the Baptist’s public ministry.370 They recount how John is a messenger “who will prepare” the way for Jesus by expansion (Mt 3:7-10 and Lk 3:7-9, AM), and both avoid the repetition of this motif in Mark’s double citation (Mk 1:2-3). Luke has moreover described John’s preparing role in Zechariah’s prophecy: ‘for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways (ἑτοιµάσαι ὀδοὺς αὐτοῦ)’ (Lk 1:76). The second part of the Markan citation (Mk 1:3) evokes the voice in the desert (Is 40:3). Matthew and Luke agree to let this citation follow their presentation of John (Mt 3:3 and Lk 3:4), while it precedes the presentation in Mark (Mk 1:4), and Luke adds two more verses from Is 40:4-5 (Lk 3:5- 6). Mark’s use of the citation introduces the entire presentation of the Baptist. Fitzmyer refers to the 2SH explanation that this is an example of Q/Mark overlaps.371 This explanation makes, nevertheless, a very uncertain case for Q.372 Fitzmyer proposes, as an alternative explanation, that the agreement of Matthew and Luke against Mark is incidental:

For Mark’s introduction of this OT quotation(s) as something found in “Isaiah” when the first part of it actually comes from Malachi is something that both later evangelists might have wanted to correct quite incidentally and independently of each other.373

By contrast, this major agreement against Mark can be explained by the L/M hypothesis, that Luke has rewritten both Matthew and Mark. As an example, instead of repeating the Markan citation Matthew expands on what this voice in the dessert says with a “judgment preaching:” ‘You brood of vipers…’ (Mt 3:7-10). Luke adapts Matthew’s choice word for

370 Werner Kahl argues that Luke follows Matthew in correcting Mark: “Diese Übereinstimmungen lassen sich am unaufwendigsten erklären als Resultat lk Benutzung des MtEv neben dem MkEv, die er beide ineinander gearbeitet hat, und zwar unter Präferierung der mt Version.” In Werner Kahl “Vom Ende der Zweiquellentheorie oder: Zur Klärung des synoptischen Problems.” In Christian Strecker (ed.), Kontexte der Schrift, (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer 2005), 404-442, 424. 371 Fitzmyer 1981, 452. 372 Martin Rese criticizes Streeter’s proposition on Mark/Q overlaps and argues: “Da die Verbindung des Jes.zitats mit dem Täufer “probably stood in Q as well as in Mark” (ebd.), können auch aus ihr keine sicheren Schlüsse für die Existenz von Q gezogen werden.” Martin Rese, Alttestamentliche Motive in der Christologie des Lukas, (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1969), 169. 373 Fitzmyer 1981, 452. That Mt and Lk worked independently of each other is clearly an attempt to correspond 2SH’s presupposition. It has no logic when studying ancient texts to exclude the investigation of direct literary relationship. 120 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 word (Lk 3:7-9) 374 and further expands upon it with an ethical preaching ‘Whoever has two coats must share…’ (Lk 3:10-14).375

5.1.2. John’s Role as a Preacher Accentuated in Luke The modified name in Lk 3:2 shall be seen in relation to the new presentation of John’s baptism. Luke develops the preacher’s role and diminishes the baptizer’s role. There is no description of a moment where John actually baptizes in Luke-Acts. This is opposed to Mark and Matthew. Luke’s narrator tells that John was “proclaiming (κηρύσσων) a baptism of repentance (µετανοίας) for the forgiveness of sins (εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁµαρτιῶν) (Lk 3:3). Not before Lk 3:16 is John referring to his own baptism “I baptize you with water.”376 In the Lukan prequel it is not said that John has come to baptize, but that he has come to prepare people by conversion (Lk 1:17). This is in accordance with Luke’s reshaping of John’s public ministry (Lk 3:1-20), which is characterized as a ministry of proclamation (also in Acts 10:37). It corresponds to the way Acts refers to John’s baptism as either a time reference or a qualitative step in the progression towards a new baptism (Chapter 7). In his commentary, Joel B. Green finds three fundamental elements in John’s ministry as described by Luke: proclamation, repentance and forgiveness of sins. He argues, against Conzelmann, that these elements “are paralleled in the ministry to which Jesus’ followers are commissioned in 24:47.”377 Green therefore distinguishes between a status reversal and a status actualization, and argues that Luke narrates a transition of status actualization for Jesus in Lk 3:21-4:13.378 Luke makes Jesus’ baptism scene introduce the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry with no more mention of John in action (3:21-22). Evans argues that Luke is concerned with beginnings and writes about them from a new agenda. Luke has, like Matthew, “carried the gospel story further back than Mark, and has given it a pre-history on the birth of Jesus (and of John).”379 By adding this parenthesis Evans implicitly suggests that Luke has expanded upon Matthew. Luke gives an account of Jesus’ genealogy (3:23) after an account on how the gospel began with the preaching and

374 ”This is the first considerable piece of oratio recta in Matthew, and Luke takes over Mt. 3.7-9 virtually as it stands. Goulder 1989, 273. 375 This is the subject of Chapter 6. 376 ”Das Taufhandeln wird erst in V.16 angesprochen und V.21 berichtet.” Hans Klein, Das Lukasevangelium, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), 163. 377 Green 1997, 170. See 5.2.1. 378 Green 1997, 185. 379 Evans 1990, 228. Chapter 5: Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 121 baptism of John (3:1-20). Evans adheres to the 2SH although he is sceptical on “what kind of writing Q was.”380 He states that Luke has made out of the “traditions a more connected narrative than that in the other gospels.”381 At the same time he recognizes that the “introductions and transitions binding material from different sources into a smooth narrative suggest Luke’s hand.”382 Consequently, he admits Luke’s creativity in reworking sources. Fitzmyer is aware of Lukan redactional modification of the Markan Baptist section.383 He comments on whether Lk 3:1-6 is dependent on “Q” or not. His discussion of Lukan dependence on Q leaves no place to discuss an alternative literary dependence on Matthew.384 He estimates resemblances between Matthew and Luke in Markan context as coincidental.385 By comparison, François Bovon suggests that Luke rewrites Mark and Q in the passage on the precursor preceding Jesus’ ministry:

Il se sert surtout de la source Q, mais également de Marc et d’autres traditions encore. Ces sources ont déjà ordonné un matériel archaïque qui comprenait principalement des paroles du Baptiste, mais aussi des informations sur sa pratique, sur son arrestation, et des interprétations de son œuvre prophétique (avec l’aide de l’Ecriture) et de sa personne (confrontée à celle de Jésus). Ce matériel remonte au plus ancien kérygme chrétien (cf. 10,37-38) : quelques logia isolés pourraient être attribués au Jean historique.386

Behind Luke 3:1-22 Bovon counts Mark and a number of unknown sources: Q, archaic sources behind Mark and Q and some John the Baptist logia. Consequently, in his view Luke is a theologian who was independent of Matthew, and who has rewritten Mark and mainly unknown sources. An alternative approach takes Lukan creativity into account. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders describe Luke’s rewriting activity and argue that Luke adopts language and themes of Scripture by expanding,

380 Evans 1990, 231. 381 Evans 1990, 230. 382 Evans 1990, 230. 383 Fitzmyer argues that “The Lucan redactional modifications of the Marcan source are mainly five.” Fitzmyer 1981, 479. 384 Fitzmyer 1981, 452. 385 Fitzmyer 1982, 480. 386 Bovon 1991, 164. Rothschild’s hypothesis is that John’s “teachings was handed down to the evangelists in written form.” Rothschild 2005, 12. She argues: “Close examination of the literary evidence beginning with Q, but ultimately including all NT gospel traditions, suggests more remains of John’s teaching than previously recognized.” Ibid, 10. 122 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 abbreviating and omitting sources.387 However, Evans and Sanders do not question if Luke’s rewriting activity concerns a literary relation to both Mark and Matthew.388

The evangelist Luke edited the materials and adopted the language and themes of Scripture much in the same way as did Jubilees, Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, Qumran’s Genesis Apocryphon, and Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities. As in these writings, Luke added genealogical materials, qualified and summarized the contents of his sources, expanded, abbreviated, and omitted altogether.389

Luke does not share a description of John the Baptist with rewritten Scripture, but with earlier gospels. However, Luke shares the claim to the authority and status of biblical texts. In this sense Luke is an example of midrashic tradition. Goulder argues that Matthew’s description of John’s baptism is a rewriting of an initial telling in Mk 1:2-11, and that Luke further alternatively follows Mark and Matthew in the section from Lk 3:1- 4.30.390 One of Goulder’s arguments against Q is that Matthew’s language, theology and date is very similar to those of Q.391 In his view Lukan Sondergut is not a lost source but examples of Lukan creativity. Differences are due to “Luke’s own creative hand.” Goulder finds in Luke a “much higher level of characterization than with Mark and Matthew.”392 The Baptist portrait in Luke is therefore my example to test Goulder’s hypothesis on Lukan rewriting of Matthew.393 It is legitimate to analyze if the expanded portrait in Luke-Acts discloses Luke’s creative hand. Goulder

387 Craig Evans and J. Sanders, Luke and Scripture: The Function of Sacred Tradition in Luke-Acts, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 4. Luke’s use of Scripture is not issue of my investigation. I distinguish use of Scripture from the literary procedure of rewriting Scripture, although both belong to the umbrella category of transtextuality. For the first approach see Kerstin Schiffner, Lukas liest Exodus: eine Untersuchung zur Aufnahme ersttestamentlicher Befreiungsgeschichte im lukanischen Werk als Schrift-Lektüre, (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2008). 388 Evans argues that Luke’s work “is an example of the ‘historical hagiographa’ (…) a genre that is part of the Jewish rewritten Bible. Methodologically his predecessor is Jubilees. His contemporaries are Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, Jospehus’s Jewish Antiquities, and of course the Gospel of Matthew.” Craig Evans, “Luke and the Rewritten Bible: Aspects of Lukan Hagiography” in James H. Charlesworth and C. A. Evans (eds.) The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation, (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 175. Evans argues having access to Mark and Q as Luke and Matthew’s sources. Evans and Sanders 1993, 2. 389 Evans and Sanders 1993, 3. 390 Goulder 1989, 270. See 2.2.1. 391 Goulder 1989, 70. 392 Goulder 1989, 87. 393 Goulder 1989, 87-88. Chapter 5: Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 123 assesses “for once the Matthean matrix is granted and the Lucan mode of development, it is hard to see that there is a need for a further hypothetical tradition.”394

5.2. Redaction Critical Approach to John the Baptist The redaction critical approach to the Baptist figure throw a new light on Luke’s use of and attitude towards his sources. The results of this approach in the works of scholars such as Conzelmann, Wink and Ernst are incoherent with regard to the source critical assumptions of the 2SH. In the following, we must therefore evaluate the consequences of their new insight upon the Q hypothesis. Luke deconstructs previous narratives and composes an alternative account on John’s identity, his authority and his baptism. The point of departure for such a hypothesis can be found in Conzelmann’s hypothesis that Luke reshapes the figure. He focuses upon the baptizer’s role in Lk 3:15, 7:18-35 and 9:9-13 and argues: “Lukas nimmt das forhandene Material auf, gestaltet es aber in bezeichnender Weise um.”(…) ”Die Umformung der Johannestradition erstreckt sich über alle Schichten von Vorlagen, ist also für Lukas selbst in Anspruch zu nehmen.”395 Conzelmann initiates a redaction-critical approach to Luke when he argues:396 ”Lukas verwendet geographische Angaben im Dienste seiner sachlichen Konzeption und modifiziert seine Vorlagen stark.”397 Conzelmann, following form criticism, presupposed a Lukan redaction of “tradition”, not of Mark and Matthew. Conzelmann sees a strictly new organisation in Luke’s view of salvation history, and he approaches the theological motivation behind Luke’s reorganisation of the gospel, and its reshaping398 of the relation between John and Jesus. He does not concede

394 Goulder 1989, 88. 395 Conzelmann 1964, 17. 396 Conzelmann sustains the 2SH and reads Luke as a rewriting of Mark and Q. He questions Luke’s attitude toward his forerunners. Conzelmann investigates on which picture Luke gives of the accounts that have been transmitted to him. Conzelmann 1964, 4. 397 Conzelmann 1964, 21. “In der Reihe der vermuteten Unstimmigkeiten innerhalb des 4. Kapitels spielt eine besondere Rolle die Verschiebung der Reihenfolge Kapernaum- Nazareth zur umgekehrten. Von der historischen Frage, wie es wirklich gewesen sei, ist abzusehen, wenn man den Bericht des Lukas verstehen will. Wir fragen nach der inneren Konsequenz desselben.” Ibid, 25. 398 Conzelmann 1964, 173. Conzelmann stresses a specific Lukan distinction between what was before and after Jesus’ proclamation. He argued from Lk 16:16 that John did not belong to the new aeon of salvation history: “Die Schlüssel für die heilgeschichtliche Ortbestimmung bietet, wie gesagt, Lc 16, 16. Für diese Stelle hat die 124 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 that Luke modified Matthew, but that Luke reorganized tradition cf. sources behind the gospels. Walter Wink follows Conzelmann and stresses Lukan redaction of Mark, and a certain degree of creativity.399 The theology turn with Bultmann and Conzelmann400 has been followed by the literary turn. Since the 1970’s there has been less stress on particular pericopae in Luke, in favor of studies on the large narrative unit. Green’s commentary is an example of this. While Green examines Lukan style, he achieves results on the interpretive implications of Luke’s expanded narrative. More recent approaches to Luke are influenced by the linguistic turn, which emphasizes the impossibility to separate facts from value in language. This approach consequently does no longer care if there is a historical fact or event behind what is told in the narrative. The quest for the historical Jesus that made the Q hypothesis a good response to the synoptic problem 150 years ago has been revised. One could imagine that the evangelists’ redactional activity disclosed by redaction criticism modified upon the need for Q. Most scholars still, however, presume the existence of one or more lost sources.

5.2.1. Luke Narratively Reshapes the Baptist Figure In his redaction-critical approach Josef Ernst argues that we find a compilation of Mark, Q and Sondergut in Luke’s recasting of John’s ministry. He is aware of the Lukan redaction behind a re-casted Baptist portrait, as he distinguishes between the language of the “tradition” and the evangelist’s redaction. He argues that Luke has compiled from Mark, Q and Sondergut in order to move the Baptist from the scene before Jesus’ entry.401 Moreover, he argues that the stress moves from the baptism to the proclaiming of God’s word: “Als vorsichtige Frage ist die These sicher erlaubt, daß es jetzt nicht mehr an erster Stelle um das Taufgeschehen, sondern um das Wortgeschehen geht. (…) Vor dem Hintergrund des ersten öffentlichen Auftretens des Johannes (3,2) bekommt der ”Anfang Jesu” eine klare Bestimmung als Sendung zur Verkündigung.”402 He hereby

Reich-Gottes-Verkündigung, also das “Evangelium” im Sinne des Lukas, vor Jesus keine Vorgeschichte.” Ibid, 17. 399 Walter Wink, John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition, (London: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 57. 400 Thomas R. Hatina, Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels, Library of New Testament Studies 376 (New Yord: T & T Clark, 2010), 3-12. 401 Josef Ernst, Das Evangelium nach Lukas, (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet Regensburg, 1977), 136. Klein agrees: ”Lk Schließt das Wirken des Täufers ab, bevor Jesu Wirken beginnt.” Klein 2006, 164. 402 Ernst 1977, 154. Bovon argues that Luke is more concerned by John as prophet and preacher/proclaimer than as a baptizer, and Luke pays less attention to John and more to Chapter 5: Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 125 argues that the baptism scene is minimized in Luke. But he does not question Luke’s attitude towards sources: The assumption that Luke rewrote a short logia source which lacked a narrative frame, demands another attitude than rewriting the theologically rich gospel of Matthew. Ernst follows Conzelmann’s interpretation that the Baptist becomes a past figure. In their interpretation of Luke’s theological thread, the relation between John and Jesus personifies the dialectic between a passed epoch of Israel’s history and a new epoch in Christ.403 However, both fail to reconsider if this insight makes Q superfluous. In his commentary to Luke, Green adheres to a narrative approach and questions Luke’s use of sources in light of how ancient historiography “was marked by the paradox of two more or less competing interests – veracity (the attempt to depict event that actually happened) and narrative (the attempt to set events within a coherent, meaningful series, the presentation of which accords privilege to causation and teleology).”404 Green reads Luke as a work interweaving recounted events with interpretive aims. He argues “Luke’s primary challenge was related to the significance of the story of Jesus and not to its verification.”405 Green’s argument supports my argument that Luke can be read as a biblical rewriting, which focus is to modify the story from inside without commenting upon previous accounts. Luke’s compulsion is to provide meaning for the events he recounts, not to argue for or demonstrate their veracity. Green’s focus is on Luke’s theological agenda, but not in a comparison with Matthew.406 Diachronic studies, unlike Green’s commentary, deal with how Luke might have used the Gospel of Mark and other written or oral sources. In a diachronic approach Ernst, for example, studies the identification of Luke’s sources, and how Luke might have transformed them. Green prioritizes a narrative approach to Luke and does not compare Luke with his eventual sources.407 Green argues that “After all, history - as “bare facts” - may be a necessary ground for faith, but “facts” are hardly a sufficient ground, nor do they necessarily assist us in our articulation of the nature of faith.”408 In my opinion Luke is an articulation of faith in its narrative outline, and one tell how the Messiah is anointed in the baptism scene ”Le récit est consacré au Messie plus qu’au Précurseur, dont il escamote le nom (cf. Les deux verbes au passif) et qui l’intéresse plus – avons nous vu - comme prophète et prédicateur que comme baptiste.” Bovon 1991, 175. 403 Ernst 1977, 151. 404 Green 1997, 15. 405 Green 1997, 15-16 406 Green 1997, 15. 407 Green comments upon the authority of the Gospel of Luke. See Green 1997, 20. 408 Green 1997, 20. 126 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 can say a lot about Luke’s theological agenda from its narrative form. Nevertheless, I find it artificial to exclude a diachronic approach, which necessarily regards Luke’s relationship to Mark, Matthew and John. I find it necessary to combine a narrative and a diachronic approach as they are complementary. It is artificial to exclude the question of literary dependence when we question how the gospels were written. Green states that the historical concerns of his reading of Luke does not relate to veracity or verification. His concerns are rather tied to “(1) how the events Luke recounts in narrative sequence might have been “heard,” or given significance, within the sociohistorical mores of Luke’s world and (2) how Luke, within his own discourse situation and in this narrative representation of history, might have accorded significance to these events.”409 In his narrative approach to Luke, Green is aware of new aspects in Luke’s Baptist figure and the new sense of John’s baptism as it takes form in Lk 3:1-20:

Luke, however, in no way distinguishes John’s mission as qualitatively distinct from that of the Christian movement, as though John’s were somehow provisional or belonged to a different age in salvation history. Indeed, the fundamental elements of John’s ministry – proclaim + repentance + forgiveness of sins – are paralleled in the ministry to which Jesus’ followers are commissioned in 24:47.410

Green argues that John takes up the role prophesied of him, i.e. he shall be ‘the prophet of the Most High’411 (Lk 1:76, cf. 1:16-17 and 7:26). He recognizes the creative part in Luke reshaping of the Baptist figure. His reading demonstrates how Luke reorganizes the presentation of John’s public ministry according to OT prophet tradition and in coherence with the birth narrative (Lk 1:1-24, 39-80). Green follows a synchronic reading and makes no comparison to Mark, Matthew and John. Consequently, he does not speculate on Luke’s relation to a hypothetical Q. Green refers to the “narrator” in the double work as “Luke.”412 He argues “narrative meaning develops as the narrative itself evolves.”413 This makes Green question Luke’s theological agenda without discussing source critical questions. Green reads Luke in its close and larger context (Acts) and as reception of Old Testament texts and theology.414

409 Green 1997, 18. 410 Green 1997, 170. Here Green disagrees with Conzelmann’s thesis. 411 Green 1997, 159. 412 Green 1997, 21. 413 Green 1997, 182. 414 Green 1997, 13, 21, 184-187. Chapter 5: Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 127

Hans Klein, by comparison, reads Luke as a patchwork of Q, Mark and Sondergut: “Zur Erarbeitung seines Berichtes hat Lk mehrere schriftliche Quellen benutzt. Drei werden gewöhnlich genannt: Q, Mk und das Sondergut. Texte auf der mündlichen Überlieferung kamen hinzu.”415 This source critical perspective makes Klein focus on the historical data given by Luke on John’s socio-political environment. Klein does not ask if there is an evolution in the portraying of the Baptist. Neither does he observe what Luke adds to the figure (Sondergut), or which attitude allows Luke to adopt from either Q or Mark according to the 2SH approach of his commentary. Klein’s favor recounted events. Green questions both recounted events and Luke’s interpretive aims. He does this despite his exclusion of diachronic discussions. Klein, by contrast, discusses Luke’s attitude toward sources, but he considers Luke a compiler of multiple sources, of which only Mark is known to us. I argue that it is problematic but not irrelevant to ask how the author behind Luke is writing against his predecessors.

5.2.2. John as a Past Figure The results of a redaction-critical reading of the Baptist figure, defended by Christoph G. Müller, implicitly challenge the 2SH hypothesis, and its presuppositions.416 These results have produced a new picture of the Lukan Baptist figure, which encourage testing literary dependence between Matthew and Luke on their respective account on John’s ministry. They have disclosed that John is Jesus’ privileged baptizer in Mark and Matthew. In the Gospel of John the two ministries are interwoven, while Luke on the opposite makes a sharp distinction between John’s and the coming figure’s ministries (by separating Lk 3:1-20 on John, from Lk 3:21-37 on Jesus). Luke’s originality in modifying previous accounts has source critical consequences. Somehow the results of redaction criticism (Conzelmann a.o.) are incoherent with what they are built upon, namely form criticism with its reliance upon the 2SH. If Luke is creative in his rewriting of John as a past figure, this new insight demands a renewed source critical discussion. By creating differences Luke makes a new characterization of the Baptist. Lk 1 and 2 anticipates Lk 3 and 4. The literary and theological reorganization of two characters in Luke 3 encompasses Mk 1 and Mt 3.

415 Klein 2006, 44. 416 C. G. Müller argues that Luke rewrote Mark, however he omits to question a literary relationship between Luke and Matthew. For example, on Jesus’ baptism: “Ein Vergleich mit der Taufperikope bei Markus zeigt allerdings, daß Lukas redaktionell eingegriffen hat.” C. G. Müller 2001, 197. 128 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

His modifications on chronology and location accentuate a distinction between two figures and the Lukan recasting of John is not explained by lost sources. Conzelmann and Green have argued through very different approaches, in the 50ies and the 90ies, that Luke reorganized his narrative and had a specific theological agenda. The latter reads Luke in a synchronic context, and the first in relation to lost but supposed transmitted tradition. The result of their investigations has consequences on how we imagine Luke used his sources. Neither of them compares Luke with Matthew. I argue that it is important to question what sources Luke rewrote, and to investigate Luke’s attitude toward his sources. The form and the content of Luke reveal something about his literary and theological choices. When I search for the ideological aspect of the rewriting I do not explain the author’s intentions, but I examine the theology of the text we read as Luke. I read the literary changes in Luke compared to Matthew as modifications and not as differences. Are there sufficient literary changes in Luke to explain ideological changes? Do the literary changes in Luke disclose ideological changes?417 In line with scholars such as Webb and Brodie it can be demonstrated that Luke makes a new interpretation of John as Elijah.418 The Elijah paradigm is important in Luke although Luke seems to reduce this typology in his gospel compared to Mark and Matthew. Luke makes an implicit Elijah typology while it is explicit in Mark and Matthew. Bormann argues “Luke reshapes the Elijah tradition much more carefully than the other Gospels. He uses the Elijah-paradigm and its functions, namely to come with “spirit and power” for the reconciliation of Israel, without identifying Jesus or John as Elijah.”419 It is important to recognize that influence not only is visible as agreement. A process of reworking can also disclose a hermeneutical procedure. The common material is not useful as criteria of agreement in this specific case. Luke’s different version of the baptism scene can also be

417 In 1919 Dibelius presupposes that the gospels in the first century lived “an unliterary life” even though Dibelius in his analysis from 1911 had called attention to the editorial elements in the gospels’ presentation of John the Baptist. He assumes that the gospel writers were collectors rather than authors. Martin Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel [1919], (Cambridge: J. Clarke, 1971), 9. Dibelius 1911, 15. Only few exegetes would join Dibelius’ assessment today, and still they continue to build their analysis upon the 2SH which implicitly recognizes the evangelists more as collectors than as authors. 418 Webb argues that Luke places John in the role of Elijah-redivivus, both in the infancy narrative (1:16-17) and when Jesus testifies concerning John (7:26-27). By contrast, Mt 17:9-13 makes the identification of John with Elijah explicit. Webb 1991, 70. Brodie 2000, 79-97. 419 Bormann, non-published manuscript: ”Rewritten Prophecy” 2015, 8. Chapter 5: Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 129 a result of influence from Matthew. Disagreement can be a sign of influence. Matthew’s alternative narrative can be a response to how John baptizes Jesus to the forgiveness of sins in Mark.420 And Luke’s narrative can be read as a reworking of both Mark and Matthew. The Acts dissociates John’s baptism from the role the baptizer plays in the gospel narrative. In this later perspective, John is not more described as a figure having a parallel activity to Jesus, such as Mark, Matthew and John present the relationship. Through the lenses of Acts John’s baptism is only of interest as inferior to a new baptism, and it has replaced the character John. A tendency critical approach discloses that this description not necessarily reflects the situation it relates to. It can as well be a polemical discussion which accentuates the right interpretation of the two figures from the author’s point of view. This perspective is at the same time influenced by the later historical context of the author. There is no such document as a biography of a person called John the Baptist from the 1st century C.E. Therefore it is probable that the baptizer described in Luke- Acts absorbs both some historical and theological threads from the period when the figure was assimilated into a gospel narrative. Green suggests that the figure condenses prophetic figures contemporary with John.421 And he argues that Luke accentuates the portrait of John as a renewal prophet:

John’s ministry is associated with the wilderness and the , setting the mention of which echo exodus and conquest themes rooted in the deliverance and the formation of Israel as a covenant people. Such echoes would have reverberated all the more audibly against the sounding board of prophetic figures roughly contemporary with John (…) The arrest of John in 3:19-20 identifies John with the rest of the prophets whose fate was open hostility and death.422

The interpretative implication of Luke’s literary changes on John’s name and the presentation of his baptism disclose a Lukan response or proposition how to understand the Baptist figure. In a comparison with Matthew these changes disclose Luke’s effort to diminish John’s role as baptizer narratively. Luke’s use of parallelism on Jesus and the baptizer in Lk 1 and 2 respond to a new agenda. Luke acknowledges an alternative relation between John to Jesus, and between different baptisms. There is narrative expansion on the figure, and Luke therefore is an example of both midrashic tradition and hypertextuality. In all likelihood, there are historical and narrative reasons to rewrite Matthew’s account on the

420 See chapter 7. 421 Green 1997, 163. 422 Green 1997, 163. 130 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 portrait of the Messiah and his precursor. Luke therefore rewrites Matthew’s infancy story on Jesus and adds narrative material on John’s infancy and birth. Goulder argues that the purpose of this Lukan expansion “was to show John as Jesus’ forerunner from the earliest beginning”423 and that Luke takes the topics in sequence in order to show Jesus’ excellence at every point. He argues “the whole function of the conception of John in the story is to foreshadow the relation of John and Jesus in the ministry.”424 Therefore Luke also narrates how Jesus spoke in the temple as 12 years old in order to establish Jesus’ authority as superior to that of John (Lk 2:41- 50).

5.3. Concluding remarks The commentaries on Luke that adhere to the 2SH focus upon similarities and agreements between Matthew and Luke. It is illogical to study omissions when one presupposes that two sources are independent. A commentary will point out how Luke has material in common with the synoptic gospels on John’s ministry. Commentaries rarely mention that John and Jesus not even meet in the Lukan account. The rupture between Luke 3:19-20 and 3:21-22 is often explained away in apologetic ways to reassure readers that John is present at Jesus’ baptism: “That is, it is evident from the language of 3:21 that Jesus was baptized, liked the others, by John, but by the time of the narration of his baptism, John is unavailable.”425 Instead of harmonizing our reading with Mark and Matthew, we should ask if there are other marks on separation between the two figures. What Luke refers to as ‘John’s baptism’ could be immersion in the Jordan without the presence of John. It is striking that the Lukan double work never refers to a meeting between the two figures, whereas Mark 1:9 and Matthew 3:13-15 explicitly tell us that John baptized Jesus. If narrative meaning develops as the narrative itself evolves, what is the meaning of Luke’s new account? And why does Luke introduce a meeting between the two figures’ mothers? Many marks in the Lukan narrative speak in favour of a new ideological organisation behind the way of portraying both

423 Goulder 1989, 221. 424 Goulder 1989, 223. 425 Green 1997, 162. In his doctoral thesis from 2009 Jaroslav Rindŏs makes a harmonizing reading and argues that Jesus’ baptism is a flashback and a habile transition: “The pericope finishes with a note about John being confined to “prison” (Luke 3.20) after he has reproached Herod. Once Luke has completed the narrative of John’s preaching, to the point of his disappearance from the public scene, he introduces a summary flashback in order to begin where Jesus’ mission starts (Luke 3.21-22).” Jaroslav Rindŏs, “He of Whom It Is Written:” John the Baptist and Elijah in Luke, (Frankfurt am Main; New York; Oxford: P. Lang, 2010), 102. Chapter 5: Luke’s Presentation of John’s Identity (Lk 3:2) 131 figures. If the meeting between John and Jesus is an omitted motif in Luke compared to Matthew, does it have any influence on how we read John’s ministry and how we understand Jesus’ baptism scene? These are the issues of the two subsequent chapters.

Chapter 6 Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17)

6.1. Introductory The previous chapter related how Luke modifies John’s name and hereby recasts the importance of John’s baptism. This issue is linked to modifications in Luke’s account on the baptizer’s preaching (Lk 3:7-17 compared to Mt 3:7-14). This chapter analyses three changes in Luke’s description of John’s ministry compared to Matthew. First, Luke’s account on John’s public ministry omits the encounter between John the Baptist and Jesus (Mk 1:9 and Mt 3:13, OM)426 and their dialogue as set forth by Matthew (Mt 3:14-15, OM) (6.1.3.). Second, Luke adds two observations concerning the people gathered around John: they were in a state of expectation, and they wondered whether John was the Messiah427 (3:15, NM) (6.2.1.). Luke makes explicit the crowd’s doubt about if John could be ‘the anointed one (ὁ χριστός)’ (Luke 3:15).428 This sentence unique to Luke follows John’s ethical preaching (Lk 3:10-14) and anticipates John’s explanation of two different baptisms (Lk 3:16-18).429 Third, Luke expands upon the baptizer’s preaching to the crowds by adding an ethical preaching (Lk 3:10-14, NM). This is an expansion of the baptizer’s judgement preaching in Matthew, which Luke has rewritten almost verbatim (Mt 3:7-10; Lk 3:7-9) (6.2.2.). If Matthew first tended to improve the Markan account, did Luke later rewrite the Markan and Matthean rendering of John’s activity? Matthew expands upon Mark’s

426 Both Mk 1:9 and Mt 3:13 explicitly recount that Jesus came to John at the Jordan. 427 Lk 3:15 is special material on John’s identity. It should also be read in relation to the Elijah typology linked to the Baptist and opposed to the ‘Son of Man’ in Mk 9:11-13 and Mt 17:10-13, which is omitted by Luke: ‘but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him (…) So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands. Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist’ (Mt 17:12-13). Goulder remarks: “The suspicion cannot escape us that it is not Q but Luke who has omitted it, since Luke elsewhere restricts the Baptist to the spirit and power of Elijah (1.17), and provides him with good first-century parents. Goulder 1989, 54. 428 Luke 3:15 agrees with the Gospel of John in referring explicitly to Messiah expectations which are directed towards the Baptist: in the Gospel of John the Baptist says ‘He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, I am not the Messiah (οὐκ εἰµὶ ὁ χριστός)’ Jn 3:20. Mk 1 and Mt 3, on the contrary, make no references to such expectations in their narrative sections on John’s public ministry. Fitzmyer stresses: John’s implicit denial of being “the Messiah” in Lk 3:15-18 “is found only here in the Synoptic tradition.” Fitzmyer 1981, 466. 429 Fitzmyer argues that Lk 3:1-20 exemplifies different forms of John’s preaching, Fitzmyer 1981, 454, and argues that John’s entire ministry, more distinctively, is related to that of Jesus. 134 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 shorter baptizer preaching (Mk 1:7-8; Mt 3:7-12) and accentuates the baptizer’s preaching activity. Luke’s baptizer preaching is detailed in 11 verses (Lk 3:7-17), against Matthew’s 6 verses (Mt 3:7-12) and Mark’s 2 verses (Mk 1:7-8). I hold that the addition, unique to Luke, on John’s activity as an ethical preacher (Lk 3:10-14), fill out a gap in Matthew’s account. Matthew moves from John’s preaching (Mt 3:7-12) to the meeting between the two figures at Jesus’ baptism (Mt 3:13-15) without transition. I shall demonstrate that the differences between the two accounts can be read as modifications, i.e. literary changes with ideological motives behind. Luke’s explicit literary changes on John’s ministry implicitly modify the baptizer’s authority.

6.1.1. The Baptizer’s Invented Testimony John’s preaching in Lk 3:7-17 can be compared to Mt 3:7-15 in light of the L/M hypothesis. Commentaries that presuppose the 2SH reject this comparison, while they compare Lk 3:7-17 with Q.430 In the L/M perspective Luke expands upon Matthew’s Baptist portrait, omits information given by Matthew on John, and adds a denial of John’s authority as “the Messiah”431 in Lk 3:15. These literary changes pertain to John’s identity and his preaching. The synoptic gospels describe that John bore witness to Jesus. It is striking that Josephus’ Antiquities refers to John and Jesus as two separate figures.432 By comparison, the Lukan double work makes a consequent effort to separate the two figures both stylistically and thematically. However, Luke expands upon John the Baptist as one who bears witness to Jesus. Laurent Guyénot argues in his analysis of the relationship between the two figures, that it could have been a problem for the evangelists, that John the Baptist did not make testimony to Jesus.433 There is a vast different between the historical relationship between the two figures and the ways in which the gospels theologically presented this relationship. It is probable that the gospels dissimulate an opposite relation between Jesus and the baptizer, when they describe the latter as the precursor of the

430 See further on Fitzmyer and others. 431 Luke’s narrative deals with Messiah expectations directed towards both John (Lk 3:15) and Jesus (Lk 2:11, 26; 9:20; 20:41; 22:67; 23:2, 35; 24:26, 46). The Christ (ὁ χριστὸς) is not necessarily a title. It can be translated as “the messiah” or “the anointed one.” 432 See 4.1.2. and 7.3. 433 Laurent Guyénot, Jésus et Jean Baptiste: enquête historique sur une rencontre légendaire, (Paris: Imago, 1999), 170. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 135 former, and implicitly inferior to Jesus.434 The historical probability of their relationship is not in focus in my analysis, because the indices are taken from theological accounts on the two figures. However, the four gospels exploit the figure of John by subordinating him to Jesus. Luke defends a clear distinction between a forerunner, one who ‘will go before (προπορεύση) the Lord (to prepare his ways)’ (Lk 1:76; compare Lk 3:4) and a coming and ‘more powerful (ὁ ἰσχυρότερός) figure’ (Lk 3:16). Luke tells parallel birth stories and hereby accentuates John’s role as a forerunner.435 The following subsection explores how the evangelist stresses the differences between two figures and two baptisms in the narrative on John’s public ministry (Lk 3:1-20). The author behind Lk 3:16-17 read and rewrote John’s preaching in Mk 1:7-8 and Mt 3:11-12: how John the Baptist confesses his inferiority and makes the testimony that a later baptism will supersede his baptism. This is the kernel on the Baptist figure in the three synoptic accounts. It is probably a later construction and not a historical saying of John. 436 As such it is an invented testimony which serves the development of the story in all three gospels. R.T. Simpson argues in 1966 that Mark created the account on John’s ministry as an introduction to that of Jesus (Mk 1:1-13):

It seems very likely that the construction of this narrative in its present form is the work of St Mark, on the basis of a number of small independent pieces of tradition.

434 Justin discusses which motive made Jesus approach the Baptist movement. Justin , Dialogue avec Tryphon, (Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2003), chapter 50; 88. 435 This is against Conzelmann’s reading, who argues: “Das Besondere des Lukas liegt darin, daß seine Vorlagen die Apologetik gerade mit dem Vorläufermotiv betreiben: Johannes ist nicht der Messias, sondern “nur” der Wegbereiter.” Conzelmann 1964, 19. And further he argues: “Auf der anderen Seite sind die apokalyptischen Kategorien (z. B. die vom eschatologischen Vorläufer) eliminiert. Im Vordergrund steht die Bestimmung der Relation zu Israel und natürlich zur kommenden Zeit der Kirche.” Ibid, 172. Wink makes a revision of Conzelmann’s argument and he emphasizes the ambiguity which surrounds John the Baptist in Luke: “It preserves the independence of his ministry from that of Jesus and yet at the same time explains how it is that he participates in the fulfilment which he inaugurates.” Wink 1968, 55-56. 436 Ernst Käsemann argues that the story of the disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus, Acts 19:1-17 is “an overpainting by Luke of the tradition he had to hand.” Ernst Käsemann, “The Disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus” from the Essays presented to Walter Bauer on his 75th birthday, 8 August 1952, in E. Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, (London: SCM Press, 1968), 136-148, 141. He argues: “Luke has overpainted and reshaped history in order to defend the Una sancta apostolica against the assault of the Gnostics and other heretics of his days. We can only understand him as an , if we have first understood him as a theologian. As a theologian he can only be understood from his doctrine of a legitimate church.” Ibid, 148. 136 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

The connexion between the Baptist and his preaching and the Baptism of Jesus, for example, is not so much logical as theological: while the baptism of Jesus may have been a traditional feature of descriptions of the beginning of his ministry, and of course this does presuppose the introduction of John, nevertheless the way in which John, the messenger, is contrasted with Jesus, the Son (Mark i. 2; i. 11), so that the whole narrative is constructed between two of Mark’s curiously mixed Old Testament quotations, suggests that it is St Mark himself who is responsible for devising this introduction to the ministry of Jesus.437

Simpson assesses with the majority of critical scholars that Matthew and Luke worked directly from the written text of Mark.438 He moreover argues that they both on many occurrences improve the Markan accounts. I investigate the nuclear account on John’s ministry found in the synoptic gospels as a theological construction. It stresses a later witness that John the Baptist is inferior to Jesus whom the evangelists understand and describe as the anointed one (ὁ χριστός). The Lukan narrator never tells us that Jesus is Christ or the Messiah otherwise than through the narrative structure of the gospel, by the “mise en récit.” The question of whether John or Jesus should be the Messiah always appears in the thoughts or in the mouth of the narrative’s characters:439 The angel announces the birth of ‘a Savior, who is the Messiah’ (2:11); expects ‘the Lord’s Messiah’ (2:26); the crowds’ expect and doubt if John is the Messiah (related by the narrator 3:15); the demons know that Jesus is the Messiah (according to the narrator 4:41); Peter confesses that Jesus is ‘the Messiah of God (τὸν χριστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ)’ (9:20); Priests and Scribes say to Jesus ‘If you are the Messiah, tell us’ (22:67); the assembly who brings Jesus before Pilate accuse Jesus for saying he is the Messiah (23:2), the leaders scoff Jesus: ‘let him save himself if he is the Messiah’ (23:35); one of the criminals who were crucified with him asks ‘Are you not the Messiah?’ (23:39). Luke lets Jesus polemically ask how some can say that the Anointed is David’s son (20:41). Luke also has the risen Jesus evoke the Messiah’s role on the way to Emmaus (24:26 and 24:46).440 The question of Jesus’

437 R.T. Simpson “The Major Agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark” NTS 12 (1966), 273-284, 276. 438 Simpson 1966, 273. 439 Luke’s narrative strategy permits the evangelist to add characters who pronounce interpretations of the narrative’s persons and events. For example, Zechariah and Simeon who interpret the destiny of John and Jesus (Lk 1:68-79; 2:29-32). This makes Luke-Acts a polyphonic narrative, in which a kerygma is told and retold by multiple voices inside the narrative frame. 440 The rhetoric of Acts either links what is told about Jesus to what is expected of “the anointed one” (τὸν χριστὸν) in 2:36, 3:18, or it refers how followers recognize Jesus as Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 137 identity, on the contrary, is never pronounced by the Lukan Baptist.441 By contrast, Luke-Acts expands upon the characteristics and differences between John’s baptism and the Messiah’s baptism.442 The evangelist accentuates the hierarchy between the two figures, not by confronting them in a scene of the narrative (as done by Mk 1:9; Mt 3:13), but by confronting their stories (in Luke) and their different baptisms (in Lk 3:15-17 and Acts). The Matthean Baptist says ‘one who is more powerful than I is coming after me (ἐρχόµενος ἰσχυρότερός µού ἐστιν)’ (Mt 3:11). Matthew has taken this sentence over from Mark (Mk 1:7). Compared to Mark and Matthew Luke adapts this sentence (Lk 3:16, AM) and only omits Matthew’s ‘after me (ὀπίσω µου).’ Hereby, Luke is coherent with what it tells about John’s birth and about his public ministry. The evangelist has already told that John is born before Jesus, so he will not repeat here that Jesus comes after John. Moreover, Luke tells that John is imprisoned before Jesus’ baptism. In Barthes’ terminology Luke anticipates a cardinal function, namely the imprisonment.443 This literary change contributes to restructure the narrative, and it implies an ideological change, i.e. there is an interpretation behind the modification. By this information Luke modifies the narrative’s chronology. John proclaims about one who shall come after him in Mark and Matthew. Luke takes the motif ‘coming after John’ from John’s lips and transfers it into the very structure of the narrative. The synoptic gospels agree to recount how John proclaimed that a later baptism will supersede his own baptism (Mk 1:8, Mt 3:11, Lk 3:16). By contrast, Luke disagrees with Mark and Matthew on the chronology of John’s and Jesus’ apparition. According to Luke, John is not the first character who shall tell that Jesus comes after him. The narrative gives this the Christ 3:20, 5:42,11:17, 17:3, 18:5, 18:28, 24:24. Philip preached “the anointed one” 8:5 without mentioning Jesus. 441 The Gospel of John, by contrast, explicitly recounts that John bears witness to a coming figure (Jn 1:19-34), and tells that John rejects being himself the Messiah (Jn 1:20). In a tendency critical approach Guyénot argues that Luke, contrary to Matthew, rejects that John recognizes Jesus as the Messiah. He assesses that Luke knows that John did not bear witness to Jesus: “Luc sait que Jean n’a pas témoigné en faveur de Jésus.” Guyénot 1999, 170. 442 See chapter 7. 443 Barthes makes a structural analysis of narratives and distinguishes between cardinal fonctions and catalyses. The cardinal functions structure the narrative progression, which is completed by catalysis, indexical and informative expansion: “appelons les premières des fonctions cardinales (ou noyaux) et les secondes, eu égard à leur nature complétive, des catalyses. Pour qu’une fonction soit cardinale, il suffit que l’action à laquelle elle se réfère ouvre (ou maintienne, ou ferme) une alternative conséquente pour la suite de l’histoire, bref qu’elle inaugure ou conclue une incertitude.” Barthes 1966, 9. 138 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 information from the beginning, i.e. even before the actors arrive on the scene, the hierarchy between them has been told in the song of Zechariah (Lk 1:76). By consequence, Luke disagrees with Mark and Matthew in the portraying of John, while he accentuates the distinction between two competing baptisms. This last motive he has presumably taken over from Mk 1:8 and Mt 3:11, and he shall expand upon it throughout his double work.

6.1.2. Accentuating John’s Inferiority (3:16) Luke’s modifications to the Baptist reveal how Luke theologically reworked the figure and the relationship between Jesus and John. From a narrative perspective, the Lukan Baptist preaches the word of God in the desert, baptizes for the forgiveness of sins and promises a future baptism in the Holy Spirit in the name of a coming figure. As such John is a strong figure. His role in Luke is to announce the arrival and the meaning of Jesus’ ministry. Luke offers a positive assessment of the Baptist. However, Luke interprets the limit of John’s authority differently than Mark and Matthew in their depictions of John’s capacity to baptize Jesus. This limit in Luke is anticipated in the birth narratives. Green reads Luke 1 and 2 as an integrated part of Luke’s theological enterprise:

The dominant feature on the literary landscape of Luke 1:5-2:52 is the point-by-point parallelism between John and Jesus. Most obvious is the juxtaposition of the annunciation stories (1:5-23, 26-38) and narratives of birth-circumcision-naming (1:57-66; 2:1-27, 34-39). However, the parallels are much more extensive and, in fact, embrace this entire section of the Gospel.444

Green argues that Luke has endeavoured to set forth the right hierarchy between the two figures before John’s entry on the public scene. This is unique to Luke, and has consequences for our analysis of Luke’s relationship to, or dependence upon, Mark and Matthew. But Green does not make the comparison. He focuses on how Luke has organized “a fitting transition to the onset of John’s prophetic ministry.”445 Conzelmann, by contrast, excludes the birth narratives from Luke’s literary landscape.446 Conzelmann implicitly argues in favour of Luke as a rewriting, when he labels some changes in the Lukan narrative as “modifications.” One example of this is when he notices a geographical

444 Green 1997, 50. 445 Green 1997, 50. 446 Conzelmann does not recognize Lk 1 and 2 as part of Luke’s new theological agenda. Conzelmann 1964, 160. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 139 indication given by Mark and Matthew but not by Luke. In his redaction- critical approach Conzelmann argues:

Lukas verwendet geographische Angaben im Dienste seiner sachlichen Konzeption und modifiziert seine Vorlagen stark. Diese Modifikation zeigt sich als bewußte, redigierende Tätigkeit in Streichungen, Zusätzen, Änderungen des Wortlauts der Vorlagen.447

Conzelmann analyses the redactional tendencies prevalent in Luke’s depiction of John the Baptist. His hypothesis is that Luke separates John from Jesus in order to establish a chronological hiatus. The two figures consequently belong to two distinct periods of salvation history, which is a particular Lukan perspective. Fitzmyer, by contrast, considers John a transitional figure.448 Both Conzelmann and Fitzmyer are aware of the expanded Baptist portrait in Luke, but they do not evaluate if Luke could be a rewriting of Matthew, but accepts the premises of the 2SH.449 The synoptic gospels agree to recount the theme of John’s inferiority (Mk 1:7-8, Mt 3:11-12 and Lk 3:16). I argue that John’s testimony to Jesus is a motif, that probably is invented, and which we found recorded for the first time in Mark450: I moreover maintain that this motif is re-casted in Luke-Acts and adapted to Luke’s theology. The subsequent chapter shall analyse this motif in relation to how Acts distinguishes between John’s baptism and the Messiah’s baptism.451 If Mark has been the first to tell John’s inferiority and his testimony to Jesus, then Matthew repeats and expands upon it. Luke adapts the theme into a new narrative structure: As Luke has expanded upon the origin of the two figures, so too he has also expanded upon their respective identity, authority and importance. Luke

447 Conzelmann 1964, 21. It is noteworthy that the English translation of Die Mitte der Zeit shares the vocabulary with Alexander on literary changes in rewritten Bible: “Luke employs geographical factors for the purpose of setting out his fundamental conception, and that he modifies his sources to a considerable extent. This modification takes the form of a conscious editorial process of omissions, additions, and alterations in the wording of the sources.” Hans Conzelmann, The Theology of St. Luke, (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 27. 448 See the critical discussion of the view of Conzelmann in Fitzmyer 1989, 59-63; and Bovon 2006, 27-28. 449 Conzelmann 1964, 6; Fitzmyer 1981, 75-81. Goulder is also aware of the expanded Baptist portrait: “So Q and Matthew seem to take an identical position on John and his relation to Jesus.” Goulder 1989, 54. He rejects Q and moreover criticizes the Sondergut (L) theory and considers “in detail the way in which Luke can be seen as creating his own special material.” Goulder 1989, 24. 450 See 4.1.1. 451 For the term Messiah’s baptism see 4.2.5. 140 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 contrasts his sources, Mark and Matthew, by adding that John recognizes Jesus as his master already from his mother Elizabeth’s womb and hereby construes an anticipated testimony to Jesus (Lk 1:43).452 In Luke, the Baptist figure is an instrument of contrast to the narrative figure of Jesus and even before his birth John is an inferior figure. The synoptic gospels agree that John is inferior to Jesus and that the latter’s baptism will supersede John’s baptism. Nevertheless, Luke accentuates the theme of John’s inferior identity and authority.

6.1.3. The Omitted Meeting between John and Jesus There is no description of John actually baptizing in the entire Luke-Acts. The narrator only implicitly tells that John baptizes in the Jordan.453 Mark and Matthew tell that John baptizes Jesus, and Luke has an actor shift or character alteration on this point (Lk 3:21 compare Mk 1:9; Mt 3:13).454 The action remains: Jesus is baptized (Lk 3:21) but the character, the Baptist, is no longer present.455 Both Matthew and Luke modify the Markan account of how Jesus comes to be baptized to the forgiveness of sins by John the Baptist (Mk 1:4, 9). The account in Mark portrays Jesus as John’s disciple, which could have been a problem for Matthew and Luke. They have two different ways to deal with this implicit problem: Matthew includes a dialogue between John and Jesus (Mt 3:14-15), which is an action alteration in Matthew compared to Mark.456 The narrator in Luke omits this meeting and tells how John is put to prison by Herod before he tells about Jesus’ baptism. These literary changes disclose that Luke has omitted and reserved material, and made an action alteration compared to both Mark and Matthew. The imprisonment is related to Luke’s omission

452 According to Green Luke hereby creates a section which has a character of fulfillment: the “Unborn John bears witness to unborn Jesus and Elizabeth blesses Mary.” Green 1997, 48. 453 Luke says that John was ‘proclaiming a baptism’ (Lk 3:3), that ‘even tax collectors came to be baptized’ (Lk 3:12). ‘John answered (…) I baptize you with water’ (Lk 3:16). Luke tells ‘when all the people had been baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized’ (Lk 3:21). 454 Like Josephus Luke makes actor alterations in his biblical rewriting. Sterling analyses the retelling of Ruth in Ant. 5.318.37 in light of what he defines as “the Jewish literary practice of rewriting Scripture.” Sterling 1998, 106. He argues that Josephus with his “sense of appropriate activities for each character creates a number of actor shifts.” Ibid, 119. 455 Luke describes Jesus’ baptism by successive subordinate clauses in the genitive absolute. 456 Sterling argues that the rewritten Scripture strategy allows the author to “alter the actions within the story in order to heighten the virtue of the main characters.” Sterling 1998, 121. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 141 of John’s and Jesus’ meeting. The interpretive implication of these changes in the Lukan rewriting: John is no longer Jesus’ privileged baptizer. Luke tells us that ‘the word of God came to John’ (Lk 3:2), and that John ‘went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming (κηρύσσων) a baptism of repentance (βάπτισµα µετανοίας) for the forgiveness of sins εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁµαρτιῶν’ (Lk 3:3). The right hierarchy between the two is spelled out by the portrayed forerunner in Lk 3:16 ‘I baptize you with water (ὕδατι); but one who is more powerful than I is coming. I am not worthy to untie his sandals. He will baptize (βαπτίσει) you with the Holy Spirit (ἐν πνεύµατι ἁγίῳ) and fire (πυρί).’ This is a rewriting of the Markan account on two figures and on two baptisms (Mk 1:7-8), which both Matthew and Luke agree to improve.457 In Luke the comparison of the two figures has been proclaimed by John’s father, and hereby anticipated by the evangelist: ‘you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways’ (Lk 1:76). Zechariah’s word is repeated by John and since accomplished throughout the Lukan portrait of the Baptist. John’s promise and preaching activity take center stage over his baptism, which in turn is relative and incomplete in the narrative logic458 of both Luke and Acts. Luke narrates the accomplishment of Scripture and of John’s word. The evangelist expands upon who spells out the promise in the prequel, and the fulfilment of this promise begins at the birth of the two figures, John and Jesus. This corresponds to the parallel telling of their annunciations, in which the right hierarchy between the two is anticipated. It is the supposed established hierarchy according to Luke’s ideological agenda.459 The meeting between John and Jesus related in Matthew is omitted in Luke’s account: ‘Then Jesus came from to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me’ (Mt 3:13-14). This Matthean theme expresses that the forerunner is embarrassed to receive Jesus. Luke omits to tell the meeting as a part of John’s public ministry. I therefore

457 Simpson argues that Lk 3:16-17 “contain two very striking adaptations of Mark which are virtually identical with the changes made in the parallel narrative in Matthew.” Simpson 1966, 278. He compares Mk 1:8 with Mt 3:11 and Lk 3:16 and argues: “The clumsy Marcan phrase (…) is reproduced by Matthew and Luke in the more polished form, (…) and both writers move the saying to a new and more emphatic position.” Ibid, 278. 458 In biblical rewritings the narrative logic is altered through literary and ideological changes. 459 Sterling argues that actor alteration recasts certain characters in a new light and “represent efforts to call the reader’s attention to the main characters, only in more direct ways” with the result that “major characters dominate the story within an established hierarchy.” Sterling 1998, 120. 142 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 assess that Luke anticipates both the meeting and John’s embarrassment to receive Jesus in Lk 1:43-44 as reserved material. Luke relates that Mary meets Elisabeth, who is amazed to receive the visit of her “Lord’s mother (ἡ µήτηρ τοῦ κυρίου)” (Lk 1:43). This is an anticipation of the scene where John and Jesus meet each other in Mark’s and Matthew’s description of John’s public ministry. The sequence of this event has been rearranged in Luke. Luke rewrites by adapting and omitting what he find in Mark and Matthew. Luke omits to recount if John and Jesus meet at Jordan as adults, Luke tells instead about an indirect meeting between the concurrent figures. They meet indirectly in their mother’s wombs when Mary comes to visit Elizabeth (Lk 1:39). Moreover, Luke tells that Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months (1:56). Wolfgang Wiefel reads this sequence as Luke’s interpretation of the two figures relationship through their mothers’ meeting:

Die fragend-reflektierende Rede läßt Elisabeth als Mutter des Vorläufers sprechen: wie künftig Johannes Jesus, so ordnet Elisabeth sich Maria unter. Hier wird eine Deutung des Verhältnisses beider Gestalten vorausgesetzt, wie sie im Johannesevangelium kulminiert (3,29f.).460

Wiefel here indirectly compares the sequence from the birth narrative to Luke’s account on John’s public ministry (Lk 3:1-20). I argue moreover, that Luke solves a problem by anticipating this meeting and omitting it from John’s public ministry.461 These changes are related to what the motives behind a new Baptist portrait could be. At a second stage of the analysis the focus is on the ideological or theological aspects of the rewriting. Goulder makes a pertinent remark when he stresses the parallel between Matthew’s 3:14 and Luke 1:43. He argues that this scene “gives Luke opportunity to extend his theme of Jesus’ excellence.”462 Goulder even suggests that John receives the spirit from the unborn Jesus at this moment, as it was promised in Lk 1:15. He moreover argues that Luke’s double infancy story announces the relation of John and Jesus in the

460 Wolfgang Wiefel, Das Evangelium nach Lukas, (Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1987), 55. By contrast, I argue that Luke rather responds the Gospel of John. See 4.1.2. 461 Daniel Schwartz argues that Luke anticipates themes in the birth story which are further developed in the gospel. Daniel Schwartz, Reading the First Century: On Reading Josephus and Studying Jewish History of the First Century, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 66. 462 Goulder 1989, 223. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 143 ministry.463 Green agrees that Luke anticipates the theme on Jesus’ superiority to John (Lk 1:43):

As a rule, the lesser greets the greater, the servant travels to the master. What is Elizabeth to make of this reversal of social convention? First, the superiority of Jesus over John is thus again highlighted. Second, however, the nature and exercise of the superior status of Jesus is anticipated. With his coming, social conventions will be turned on their head; the greater will serve the lesser (cf. 1:51-53; 22:25-27).464

Again Green makes no comparison to Matthew here. However, in light of the rewriting perspective this anticipated theme is an example of reserved material: The evangelist behind Luke has read the motif in Matthew (Mt 3:14), omitted it from the scene on John’s public ministry (Lk 3:1-20) and moved it to an earlier section (Lk 1:43). In this sense Luke creates an actor shift and casts Elizabeth into a figure, which recognizes a coming figure as superior to her future son. John the Baptist’s embarrassment described in Matthew is pronounced by Elizabeth instead of by John himself in Luke’s account.

6.2. Luke Tells about Two Separate Figures In Luke John is more a preacher than a baptizer. My first and second point, John’s authority and the omitted meeting, are linked to my third point that Luke expands upon John’s preaching. This narrative development in Lk 3:10-15 (seen from the perspective of all occurrences on the Baptist in Luke-Acts) accentuates that John is not the Messiah, but rather a preacher: ‘As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah’ (Lk 3:15).465 Compared to the Markan and Matthean account Luke adds that the crowds expects and wonders whether John might be the Christ. The fact that Luke adapts and prefaces Mark and Matthew’s mention of John’s inferiority with questions on John’s identity accentuates these themes (Lk 3:16 compare Mk 1:7 and Mt 3:11). Luke moreover links for the first time

463 Goulder 1989, 223. 464 Green 1997, 96. 465 Luke recounts how Mary already understands the role of her son, when he stays in the temple as a child: ’His mother treasured all these things in her heart’ (2:51). While Jesus’ mother treasures all things about her son in her heart, the people in expectation question ‘in their hearts concerning John’ (3:15). Bovon stresses: “Pour Luc, le “cœur” est le lieu de la volonté et de la pensée (plutôt que des sentiments). Questions et décisions se forment dans le cœur.” Bovon 1991, 171. 144 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Messiah expectations to a coming baptism.466 Luke’s introduction of John’s baptismal activity precedes the Messiah’s baptism. The first time John’s baptism (Lk 3:16) is mentioned it is sat in contrast to a more powerful and superseding baptism. But Luke has already contrasted the Baptist to a superior figure by what precedes in his narrative. These are significant ideological changes in the Lukan narrative.

6.2.1. John’s Authority Compared to the Messiah (Lk 3:15) Luke deals both with concurrent figures and concurrent baptisms, and the hierarchy between the figures is transferred to the established hierarchy between the baptisms in the narrative logic of the double work. Acts summarizes John’s activity (as described in Lk 3:1-20), when Paul’s speech in the synagogue in of contrasts the meaning of Jesus’ ministry with that of John:

God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised; before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he said, ‘what do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of the sandals on his feet.’467

Here Acts repeats what Luke is the only of the synoptic gospels to stress explicitly, that John is not the figure whom people expect to come (Lk 3:15).468 Robert L. Webb argues “Luke prefaces his use of Mk 1.7-8 and Q 3.16- 17” with the people’s expectations to John as Messiah.469 Webb stresses the ideological changes behind Luke’s modifications (in Lk 3:15): “With this preface Luke shapes John’s announcement of a coming figure to be an explicit denial of his own messianic status, but this in turn suggests an implicit interpretation of the expected figure as messianic (Lk 3:16-17).”470 He approaches Luke’s narrative strategy and suggests that Luke prefaces, shapes and links his narrative in a new way.471 Hereby Webb recognizes

466 “Das Verständnis des Messias als einer Predigergestalt ist christlich, da es vom Anspruch der Christen, daß Jesus der Messias sei, abgeleitet ist. Die Feststellung will das Christuszeugnis des Täufers vorbereiten.” Klein 2006, 167. Klein argues that John’s baptismal activity is an anticipation of the Messiah’s baptism. I shall argue, by contrast, that the quality of John’s baptism is diminished in Luke-Acts (Chapter 7). 467 Acts 13:23-25. 468 Acts here agrees with The Gospel of John (Jn 1:20). 469 Webb 1991, 63. 470 Webb 1991, 63. 471 Luke “links John’s ‘evangelizing’ with Jesus’ own preaching.” Webb 1991, 63. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 145

Luke’s redactional activity, although he neglects the possibility that Luke could be an expansion of the Matthean account. On the question of explicit Messiah expectations Luke can be compared to the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John the term “the Messiah/Anointed” appears first in relation to the Baptist. It is the baptizer who spells this question out: ‘He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, I am not the Messiah’ (Jn 1:20).472 The people answer ‘Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?’ (Jn 1:25). In the Gospel of John the term is used to contrast the Baptist and Jesus. The term is finally related to Jesus: ‘We have found (εὑρήκαµεν) the Messiah (τὸν Μεσσίαν), (which is translated the Anointed (χριστός))’ (Jn 1:41). Both Luke and Matthew have the explicit Messiah expectation in a later narrative context, but they handle the theme differently. They relate that John’s disciples ask Jesus: ‘Are you the one who is to come (ἐρχόµενος), or are we to wait for another’ (Lk 7:19-20 and Mt 11:3). Matthew mentions that John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing (τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ) (Mt 11:2). Luke tells of the Messiah expectations in prolongation of two healing stories on how Jesus heals a Centurion’s servant (Lk 7:1-10) and raises the Widow’s Son at Nain (Lk 7:11-17). Luke expands narratively on Jesus’ actions before evoking the expectations. These accounts introduce what Luke has in common with Matthew on John’s disciples. Luke omits to tell here that John is in prison. This information has been given from the start of the gospel (Lk 3:19-20). Luke inserts and anticipates the theme of messiahship explicitly inside the narrative on John’s public ministry. This modification indicates that Luke interprets the figure. Luke moreover accentuates John’s difference from Jesus when the narrator makes explicit the thoughts of the people listening to John. The synoptic gospels agree to tell John’s testimony ‘one is coming who is mightier than I’ (Mk 1:7, Mt 3:11, Lk 3:16) but Luke prefaces this testimony with a question on John’s eventual messiahship (Lk 3:15). Because of the new literary context in which Luke inserts the same sentence ‘one is coming who is mightier than I’, it becomes a negation of the crowd’s doubt on John’s identity. In a rearranged narrative context Luke makes John himself affirm that he could not be ‘the anointed one (ὁ χριστός)’ (Lk 3:15). Moreover, Luke has already referred to Jesus, the coming figure, as ‘the anointed one’ pronounced by the angel (2:11) and in Simeon’s expectations (2:26). Fitzmyer reads Lk 3:15 as an “implicit

472 The Gospel of John explicitly tells that John testified to Jesus (Jn 1:15-18), and that John’s disciples later referred to John’s testimony (Jn 3:26). 146 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 denial”473 of John’s Messiahship. He is correct in stressing that it is only found here in the synoptic tradition: “It forms part of the evangelist’s comment in v. 15 and is not on John’s lips.”474 Webb argues that Luke prefaces Q 3:16.475 His reading of John’s statement discloses an example of a Mark-Q overlap in the logic of the 2SH. A reading which he shares with Evans: “This testimony in the form of a contrast of two baptisms is very compressed, and is made more obscure by the existence of two variant versions, those of Mark and Q.”476 Evans argues that “Luke follows the Q version.”477 Both Fitzmyer and Webb recognize Luke’s addition as redactional, but they presuppose that Luke adds to Q’s account on the baptizer and not to Matthew’s. Evans argues that Luke has adopted the addition on Messiahship from Q. Luke 3:16 can be explained alternatively as literal dependence upon both Mark and Matthew. I argue in light of the L/M hypothesis that Luke 3:16 begins by the Matthean form (Mt 3:11): ’I baptize you with water’ but continues with the Markan form (Mk 1:7) ‘one who is more powerful than I is coming, I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals’ (Lk 3:16).478 This reading makes an unknown source redundant. Sanders and Davies argue: “Supporters of Markan priority without Q would simply say that Matthew expanded Mark and that Luke used both, rearranging the material.”479 If Lk 3:16 is an example of conflation, then it reveals that a creative rewriting of sources was possible, and invites to reevaluate Luke’s attitude towards sources. This example does not support the presupposition of one lost source deduced from common material in Matthew and Luke. Webb and Evans read the section Lk 3:15-16 as a Mark-Q overlap, which precisely weakens the 2SH. The more simple solution is that Lk 3:15-16 prefaces and rewrites Mk 1:7 and Mt 3:11. This reading is supported by the rewriting Scripture perspective. Although Evans reads John’s testimony in Luke as a Mark-Q overlap he recognizes that Luke pointed up the testimony in Mark and Matthew “by framing it with an introduction (v.15) and a conclusion (v.18).”480 He moreover argues on Lk 3:15 that “style and

473 Fitzmyer 1981, 466. Evans argues “Luke takes he who is mightier as denoting the messiah, and so interprets John’s words as primarily a disavowal of messiahship.” Evans 1990, 242. 474 Fitzmyer 1981, 466. 475 Q 3:16 is an artificial and reconstructed verse based upon what is found in Mt 3:11 and Lk 3:16. 476 Evans 1990, 242. 477 Evans 1990, 242. 478 See Goulder 1989, 276. 479 Sanders and Davies 1996, 78. 480 Evans 1990, 242. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 147 vocabulary show this verse to be from Luke’s hand.” Evans recognizes Lukan creativity in rewriting sources, but rejects that Luke’s sources could be both Mark and Matthew. Fitzmyer remarks that the Baptist’s messianic preaching (Lk 3:15-18) conflates three titles, applying to Jesus: “the Messiah,” “the One Who Is to Come” (…) and “the more powerful one.”481 He stresses that a christological concern dominates John’s preaching in Luke. He argues that in contrast to the Markan form (Mk 1:8) “the “Q” form of John’s statement makes the baptism with fire and the holy Spirit depend directly on John’s identification of Jesus as the more powerful one. Because he is such, he will baptize in a more powerful way.”482 Fitzmyer fails to explain why this should be a Q form and not a Lukan form of John’s preaching. Fitzmyer stresses four ways in which Luke explains Jesus’ superiority over John: 1) Jesus comes after John in a chronological sense, and not as a disciple after his master (3:16). 2) John recognizes to be inferior to Jesus (3:16). 3) There is a contrast between John’s and Jesus’ baptism (3:16). 4) Jesus is “the messianic figure of the eschaton who is about to appear”483 and who is proclaimed as such on John’s lips (3:17). In my view, these characteristics of John’s inferiority are common to both Matthew and Luke. The latter has moreover anticipated and expanded the Matthean comparison of two figures and two baptisms. Luke modifies his sources so that these themes are expanded throughout the Lukan double work. I maintain that the ideological changes behind are linked to a new interpretation of the relation between John and Jesus, and a sharpened interpreting rewriting. Luke’s modifications redefine who of the two can be said to be the Messiah. The fact that John’s inferiority also is developed in Zechariah’s song (Lk 1:76) and in Acts summary of John’s ministry (Acts 13:25) adds to the argument of Luke as a rewriting. Goulder argues that Luke underlines John’s confession of inferiority “by prefacing, widespread expectation and speculation whether John might be the Messiah; and John’s reply, ‘I baptize you with water…’, then comes a ringing denial of such an idea.”484 He remarks that Acts 13:25 has John repeating this denial. He moreover argues that the introduction to John’s ethical preaching (Lk 3:10-14) has a parallel in Acts: Before receiving the baptism the crowds ask John ‘What then should we do?’ (Lk 3:10) while Peter and the apostles are asked: ‘Brothers, what should we do?’ (Acts 2:37). Goulder stresses that it is a typical Lukan feature to have three

481 Fitzmyer 1981, 466. 482 Fitzmyer 1981, 466. 483 Fitzmyer 1981, 466. 484 Goulder 1989, 276. 148 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 successive approaches with similar opening words as we find it in John’s ethical preaching.485 He recognizes Lukan creativity and argues that Luke has reshaped Matthew’s account on John’s preaching: “The content of the Baptist’s instruction seems to be our first instance of the evangelist’s high skill in putting suitable words in his speaker’s mouth – a skill we have much cause to admire in Acts.”486 It is an argument against Q, that the evangelist behind Luke has reorganized the introduction to the Baptist from the same agenda with which he redacted Acts’ references to the figure. Heinz Schürmann is aware of such ideological changes in Luke which have parallels in Acts. He argues that Luke promises to introduce Theophilus to the teachings of early Christianity: ‘so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed’ (Lk 1.4). And he links John’s preaching (Lk 3:7-17) and John’s denial of being the Messiah (Acts 13:25) to this promise: “Die Täuferunterweisung Lk 3, 7b-17 vertritt also in der Erinnerung des Theophilus wie der Christlichen Leser in etwa die einst empfangene präbaptismale Unterweisung.”487 I hold that John’s proclaiming activity linked to baptism (Lk 3:1-20 and Acts 13:24488) is indirectly referred to in Acts, when Peter preaches before he baptizes ‘three thousand souls’ (Acts 2:37-41). Moreover, expanded material in Luke which agrees with material in Acts reveals Lukan redaction and ideological changes more than Q residue. John’s expanded preaching should therefore be compared with occurrences on teaching and baptism in Acts.

6.2.2. Luke’s Account on John’s Threefold Preaching (Lk 3:7-17) Fitzmyer reads Luke 3:7-18 as three samples of John’s “prophetic preaching activity.”489 He proposes that Luke has given three different aspects of this preaching as: eschatological (3:7-9), ethical (3:10-14), and messianic (3:15-18).490 He holds that Luke 3:7-18 mainly follows Mark: “In comparing this passage with the other synoptic accounts, we see that

485 Goulder 1989, 274-275. 486 Goulder 1989, 274. 487 Heinz Schürmann, Das Lukasevangelium: Kommentar zu Kap. 1,1-9,50, (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1984), 181. 488 ‘Before his [Jesus] coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel’ (Acts 13:24). 489 Fitzmyer 1981, 463. 490 Fitzmyer 1981, 463. Green reads this section as a Lukan chiasm, where Lk 3:7-18 content three separate teaching segments, but he does not discuss Luke’s relation to Mark and Matthew. Green 1997, 173. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 149 the basic inspiration for it is drawn from “Mk.””491 I hold that the evidence of Lukan common material and order with Matthew in Lk 3:7-9; 16-17, and Lukan special material in 3:10-15, does not make this section an example of Lukan rewriting of Mark. In fact, Fitzmyer needs two hypothetical sources to explain this passage as rewritten Mark: “Even though Luke has inserted into the narrative derived from “Mk” material from the Double Tradition and a private source, the episode itself still forms part of a major block of material common in sequence in Mark and Luke.”492 Again Fitzmyer neglects to compare Luke’s baptizer portrait with that of Matthew. Instead he argues that “Sayings-material from “Q”” is found in Luke’s account on John’s eschatological (3:7-9) and messianic preaching (3:16-17) and find their parallel in Mt 3:7-10; 3:11-12.493 He admits his adherence to the 2SH when he concludes “we have in these two independent testimonies a double attestation of the basic comparison of John with Jesus in the matter of baptism.”494 Fitzmyer makes a pertinent analysis of John’s threefold preaching and argues that it is a result of Lukan composition. However, his explanation of sayings-material from Q in Luke becomes a circular argument, while he presupposes the independence of Matthew and Luke. He discovers Q’s “basic comparison” of John and Jesus because he searches for that which lies behind Matthew and Luke instead of comparing the two gospels. In my view, this section on John’s preaching bears a clear mark of dependence between the two gospels, and nevertheless Fitzmyer follows Streeter’s and Farmer’s objection to Lukan rewriting of Matthew.495 Fitzmyer objects that Luke never has inserted the double tradition material into the same Markan context as Matthew, apart from Lk 3:7-9, 17 (John’s preaching) and Lk 4:2-13 (the temptations of Jesus).496 The exception does not lead him to study Luke as dependent on Matthew, but makes him question why Luke if he had access to Matthew did not “manifest the same respect for this source as he does for the Marcan source.”497 Fitzmyer fails to conceive that Luke had an attitude toward Matthew which permitted Luke to rewrite also this source creatively, that the literary changes in Luke compared to Matthew could be Lukan

491 Fitzmyer 1981, 464. 492 Fitzmyer 1981, 464. 493 Fitzmyer 1989, 464. In his introduction Luz argues: “Matthew has hardly omitted from the Sayings Source.” Luz 1989, 24. It is striking that Luz defends the independence of Matthew and Luke although he argues that Matthew in its rewriting of Mark has a strategy in common with “rewritten Bible.” Ibid, 30-31. 494 Fitzmyer 1989, 464. 495 Streeter 1924, 183 See 2.1.3. And Farmer 1964, 407. 496 Fitzmyer 1981, 74-75. 497 Fitzmyer 1981, 75. 150 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 modifications of Matthew’s account. Drury argues that Q defenders by stressing this exception admit the fact “that there is no need of the Q theory up to the end of the temptation story.”498 I therefore argue that Luke’s account on John’s ministry (3:1-20) and the introduction to Jesus ministry (3:21-4:13) support the L/M hypothesis. Fitzmyer offers the keys to such an analysis without reevaluating his source critical presuppositions. In Luke the theologian he follows up on his analysis of John’s preaching and argues:

Luke expands the material, giving three samples of the Baptist’s preaching: his eschatological sermon (3:7-9), the brood and vipers speech known from Matt 3:7-10, now addressed not to the Pharisees and , but to “the crowds”; his ethical preaching (3:10-14), the counsel he gives to the crowds, toll-collectors, and soldiers; and his messianic preaching (3:15-17), in which he admits that he is not the Messiah, but that someone mightier than he is coming. The second and third samples turn out to be distinctively Lucan.499

Fitzmyer’s results disclose that Luke accentuates John’s role as a preacher. He admits that Luke rewrites John’s preaching creatively, while he notices that Luke has expanded the material. He still adheres to the 2SH when he discusses whether Matthew or Luke is closest to the Q version of the temptation story.500 It is striking that Fitzmyer admits Lukan creativity but refrains from studying the literary relationship between Matthew and Luke. Referring to the first of John’s speeches in Luke, Fitzmyer stresses:

This first subsection is one of the clearest instances of identical wording in the Double Tradition: sixty-four (Luke) words in the Greek text of these verses are identical (see Matt 3:7-10). The differences (…) are almost certainly Lucan stylistic improvements.501

Goulder proposes a more economical solution without appeal to a lost source: “Luke takes over Mt. 3.7-9 virtually as it stands.”502 Goulder argues, against Fitzmyer’s reading, that Luke 3:1-17 follows Matthew 3:1- 12 “closely over a longish passage; or, on the standard paradigm, something extremely close to Matthew from Q.”503

498 Drury 1976, 128. 499 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Luke the theologian: Aspects of his teaching, (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), 103. 500 Fitzmyer 1989, 151-158. 501 Fitzmyer 1981, 465. 502 Goulder 1989, 273. 503 Goulder 1989, 273. Goulder argues that the L/M hypothesis “depends partly upon there being material in Matthew which can be plausibly seen as being developed by Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 151

Goulder’s argument has been tested before. On the present pericopae Wilhelm Wilkens and R. T. Simpson have argued that precisely Lk 3: 7-17 is an example of Lukan dependency upon Matthew.504 Wilkens argues in 1965 on Luke’s use of Matthew (Lk: 3:7-9; Mt 3:7-10):

Die folgenden Analysen machen nun deutlich, daß die Matthäus im Wortlaut sehr nahe stehenden Stücke von Lukas aus dem Matthäus-Evangelium übernommen sein müssen. (…) Abgesehen von dem Einleitungssatz, in dem Matthäus und Lukas sich charakteristisch voneinander abheben, wird Matthäus fast wörtlich zitiert.”505

Simpson reads the Markan introduction to “The Baptism and Temptation of Jesus” (Mk 1:1-13) as a Markan construction. And he argues that “the particular changes made by St Luke in the text of Mark presuppose a knowledge of Matthew’s editing of Mark.”506 On this specific passage Simpson stresses:

First, that the changes made by St Matthew and St Luke in the text of Mark are editorial improvements of that gospel; secondly, St Luke must have known a version of Mark which incorporated the same editorial improvements as those which are found in Matthew.507

As demonstrated above most commentaries, by contrast, argue that Luke’s account on the Baptist predication is dependent on Q, without comparing it to Matthew.508 Eduard Schweizer reads:

Luke- with sufficient verbal reminiscence- and partly (…) on his following the Matthean order.” Ibid, 88. 504 Simpson 1966. Wilhelm Wilkens, “Zur Frage des literarischen Beziehung zwischen Matthäus und Lukas” NT 8 (1966), 48-57. 505 Wilkens 1966, 49. He gives the example that ‘You brood of vipers’ in Mt 3:7 addressed to the Pharisees and Sadducees followed by a question is characteristic of Matthean redaction (i.e. Mt 12:34; Mt 23:33). “Auch diese für Matthäus charakteristische Fragestellung hat Lukas in iii 7 übergenommen! Hier tritt also die Redaktion des Matthäus besonders deutlich zu Tage.” Wilkens 1966, 50. 506 Simpson 1966, 275. 507 Simpson 1966, 275. 508 Hans Klein presupposes that Luke had access to multiple sources: “In V. 7-9 folgt Lk im Wesentlichen Q (…) V. 10-14 ist Sondergut, das Lk möglicherweise von Täuferkreisen kennt (…) In V. 15-17 kombiniert Lk den Q-Text mit Mk 1,7f.” Klein 2006, 160-161. Klein mentions that Luke concludes the Baptist’ activity before Jesus’ activity begins. He is aware of Luke’s literary and ideological changes, but he omits to discuss if these could be changes of Matthew, rather than of an unknown source. Schürmann reads Lk 3:7-17 in comparison to ”der Redequelle” and argues that the passage is John’s baptism teaching: “Sie erinnerte an die grundlegenden Forderungen der präbaptismalen Katechese, was nach der Taufe zu tun und zu lassen sei.” Schürmann 1984, 181. 152 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Aus der in Q überlieferten Warnung vor Sicherheit (V. 7-9), der Sondertradition von Weisungen an verschiedene Menschengruppen (V. 10-14) und der auch bei Mk und Q stehenden Ankündigung des Kommenden (V. 15-18) formt Lukas, gerahmt durch die Schilderung der Berufung (V. 1-6) und der Gefangennahme des Täufers (V. 19f.), eine umfassende Darstellung seiner prophetischen Predigt.509

Schweizer admits that Luke has adapted some earlier material in a new presentation (framed by Lk 3:1-6 and 3:19f.). However, he needs multiple lost sources to explain how Luke recounts the Baptist’s activity. I read the addition of John’s ethical preaching in Lk 3:10-14 as a continuation of John’s eschatological preaching (Lk 3:7-9 and Mt 3:7-10). Luke adapts this first sermon (Lk 3:7-9) from Mt 3:7-10, and subsequently the evangelist adds an ethical preaching in Lk 3:10-14 (NM). He finally adopts and expands upon John’s messianic preaching in Matthew (Lk 3:15- 17 compare Mt 3:11-12, AM).510 Luke expands upon the question of ethical behaviour whereas Matthew evokes conversion: ‘Bear fruit worthy of repentance’ (Mt 3:8). This Matthean theme of conversion in John’s first preaching is repeated (from Mt 3:8) in Lk 3:8 and expanded narratively with his claim of a radical new way of living Lk 3:10-14.511 Luke precisely inserts Matthean material in the same Markan context, contrary to what Streeter and Fitzmyer have argued. The 2SH focuses on what is common in Matthew and Luke (hypothetical Q begins with Mt 3:1 and Lk 3:2).512 Hereby the 2SH limits its purpose to confirm what it presupposes: that

509Eduard Schweizer, Das Evangelium nach Lukas, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), 1982, 47. 510 Webb adheres to the 2SH in his analysis of different accounts on the Baptist figure and argues on Lk 3:7-9 “The account of John’s speech follows Q 3.7-9 closely.“ Webb 1991, 63. He argues that Luke’s ethical preaching (3:10-14) is unique Lukan material and speculates if it “may originally have been found in Q. However, since Matthew omitted it, then direct evidence for its presence in Q is lacking.” Webb 1991, 63. 511 Josephus’ Antiquities also stresses John’s claim to conversion: “For Herod had put him to death though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practise justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism.” Ant. 18. 117. 512 Wellhausen’s commentary from 1904 refers to Lk 3:1-20 as Q 1. Julius Wellhausen, Das Evangelium Lucae, (Berlin: Verlag von Georg Reimer, 1904), 3. It is noteworthy that he further compares Luke with Matthew, while he reads Luke “3,7-9 wie Mt. 3, 7- 10.” And “3, 15-17 wie Mt 3, 11-12.” Ibid, 5. In his commentary Joachim Jeremias refers to Lk 3:7-9 and Mt 3:7-10 as the first common citation of a logia source: “Unser Abschnitt (…) ist das erste Stück aus der Matthäus und Lukas gemeinsamen Logienüberlieferung. Bis auf die Einleitung und einige minimale Unterschiede (…) stimmen beide Evangelien wörtlich überein, was auf vorlukanische Tradition weist.” Joachim Jeremias, Die Sprache des Lukasevangeliums, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), 105. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 153 there is a common lost source. I argue, on the contrary, that there are common themes in Matthew and Luke such as to offer an announcement and a genealogy. These features are agreements which shall be taken into consideration and be compared to the evidence of common material, when one studies the synoptic problem. There are common treatments of citation (Mt and Lk agree to report Mk1:2b; compare Mt 11:10 and Lk 7:27), common omissions, and common additions to Markan material. A structure emanates when one examine these literary changes from a rewriting perspective. In the 2SH’s restricted focus on Matthean and Lukan common material as double tradition one cannot perceive the rewriting structure, which combines added, omitted and rearranged material. In particular, Lukan omissions of Matthew will not be taken into consideration by the 2SH, which focuses on common material. In the 2SH approach only adapted and rearranged material is taken into consideration. This latter reading demands multiple sources, and consequently moves Luke’s rewriting attitude from a known to an unknown source. For example, Klein presumes Luke’s use of lost sources in his commentary of 2006:

Zur Erarbeitung seines Berichtes hat Lk mehrere schriftliche Quellen benutzt. Drei werden gewöhnlich genannt: Q, Mk und das Sondergut. Texte aus der mündlichen Überlieferungen kamen hinzu. Lk ist theologisch von der Logienquelle (Q) geprägt.513

Klein’s source critical remarks disclose that a particular approach to gospel writing has survived in commentaries from Julius Wellhausen in 1904 to our day. Moreover, Klein argues that ideological changes found in Luke compared to Mark and Matthew, are remnants of Q’s theology. I argue, on the contrary, that the literary changes observable in Lk 3:1-20 have important interpretive implications if Luke rewrote Matthew. This is a new insight which proponents of the 2SH do not take into consideration, because they first base their studies on a comparison between Luke and a Redequelle.514 In my view, Matthew’s and Luke’s presentations of John’s proclamation are examples of Luke’s reworking of John’s authority. Luke’s portrait of John is a consequence of his understanding of Jesus. This is seen in the fact that the Lukan Baptist figure is referred to as one who proclaims the good news (Lk 3:18) just before Jesus begins his proclaiming ministry (Lk 4:14-15, 18). Because of this, the Baptist seems to be a teacher that

513 Klein 2006, 44. 514 For example, Schürmann 1984, 181. 154 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 preaches as Jesus and his later disciples will do it after him.515 However they do not necessarily preach the same gospel. The difference between their proclamations is that while John preaches ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ in the region around Jordan (Lk 3:3), Jesus preaches ‘the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also’ and ‘in the synagogues of Judea’ (Lk 4:43-44).516 By contrast, Matthew has both John and Jesus preaching reversal and the kingdom of heaven: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ (Mt 3:2) and: ‘From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near (Mt 4:17). These obvious differences between Matthew and Luke reveal that the latter is close to Mark’s presentation of John’s proclamation on baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mc 1:4). While Matthew coordinates John and Jesus by means of direct speech (Mt 3:14) and on the content of their proclamation, Luke omits their meeting and reserves the kingdom preaching for Jesus (Lk 4:43). However, Luke uses Matthew’s material on John’s eschatological preaching (Lk 3:7-9). Luke adapts some of Matthew’s expansions to Mark on the baptizer and differs from Matthew’s direct parallel between John’s and Jesus’ kingdom proclamation.

6.3. Concluding Remarks Mark’s first and Matthew’s third chapter introduces the identity and the mission of the character John. One of Luke’s modifications consists in the fact that he omits a meeting between John and Jesus in the account on John’s public ministry. This change has been read in relation to Luke’s actor alteration517 within an established hierarchy: the evangelist rewrites the Matthean narrative by expansion when adding Elizabeth and Mary’s meeting. Luke’s third chapter is very similar to Mk 1 and Mt 3, nevertheless Luke anticipates both the identity and the mission of John in the first chapter. In Luke 1 and 3 John’s announcement of an expected figure and proclamation becomes the most important element of his ministry. John’s ethical preaching in Lk 3:10-14 (NM) is an expansion of what Luke shares with Matthew (Lk 3:7-9 and Mt 3:7-10). The Messiah expectations and references to John’s proclaiming activity (Lk 3:15, 18

515 For example in :14-25, when the disciples proclaim the good news: “Now after Peter and John had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many villages of the " (Acts 8:25). Philip proclaims “the good news about Jesus” to the eunuch in Acts 8:35. 516 Luke follows Mark’s distinction between John’s and Jesus’ proclamation in (Mk 1:4 and 1:14-15) and adds details on the locations in which they preached. 517 See note 458. Chapter 6: Luke on John’s Authority (Lk 3:7-17) 155

NM) added to John’s ethical preaching, consequently diminishes the stress on John as a baptizer, which characterized Mark and Matthew’s portraits. Luke adds a birth story on John, but does not mention with one word that John comes to baptize (in Lk 1 and 2). Luke-Acts gives the most elaborated explanation of how to understand the relationship between the forerunner and the expected figure. This relationship is explained in a condensed way in Lk 3:16-17 (rewritten and expanded Mk 1:7 and Mt 3:11) and resumed in Acts 13:23-25. The narrative with most occurrences of John makes the clearest distinction between two figures and their respective baptisms. In a paradoxical way Luke tells more about John in order to diminish his importance compared to Jesus. Luke’s parallelism on the two figures separates them, and the result of the juxtaposition is that Luke communicates the superiority of Jesus.

Chapter 7 The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16)

7.1. Introductory Scholars who study the gospels in order to approach “the historical Jesus” have traditionally pointed to the close personal relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist.518 In his gospel, Luke does not depict this relationship as personal and intimate. Instead, he modifies the temporal and thematic relationship between these two figures.519 It is problematic when historical- critical studies on Jesus and John the Baptist so often harmonize the gospels’ accounts on the figures in their search for the historical persons behind the literary characters.520 In his historical examination of John from 1964, Charles Scobie, for example, argues that the four gospels and Q “testify to a connection between John and Jesus.”521 Later redaction-critical studies such as the one by Walter Wink assess that each gospel on the contrary has a particular account of this relationship. Wink’s task is to “discover the significance of John the Baptist for the writers of the Gospels

518 Jeremias aims to approach the historical Jesus and his preaching. He stresses that Jesus is close to John the Baptist: “Daß kein Grund besteht, an der Geschichtlichkeit der Taufe Jesu zu zweifeln, haben wir (…) gesehen. Auch die Nachricht, daß Jesus bei der Taufe ein für sein Auftreten bestimmenden Erlebnis hatte, hat alle Wahrscheinlichkeit für sich. Dafür spricht, daß Jesus dem Täufer nahesteht und sich dennoch grundlegend von ihm unterscheidet.“, Joachim Jeremias Neutestamentliche Theologie I: Die Verkündigung Jesu, (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1971), 61. Meier takes “the baptism of Jesus by John as the firm historical starting point for any treatment of Jesus‘ public ministry.“, Meier 1994, 105. Webb argues: “within the realms of historical probability, Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. As such, Jesus’ baptism was a significant turning point in his life (…) By responding to John’s message to the nation of Israel, Jesus participated in John’s repentance-baptism.”, Robert L. Webb “Jesus’ Baptism by John: its Historicity and Significance” in Daniel L. Bock and R. Webb, Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 95-150, 143. 519 John and Jesus are related by blood in Luke’s infancy narrative (Lk 1 and 2) but the evangelist separates them definitively before Jesus’ baptism in Luke 3. In Barthes’ terminology, this is an example of informative expansion in a narrative. Barthes 1966, 9. 520 Meier states: “Even after the Baptist’s arrest and execution, Jesus was never entirely “without John.”” Meier 1994, 167. He makes a harmonizing reading of the gospels accounts on Jesus’ baptism as “the only story in the NT that clearly subordinates Jesus to John by having the former voluntarily undergo a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins at the hands of the latter.” Ibid, 183. 521 Charles H.H. Scobie, John the Baptist, (London: SCM Press, 1964), 142. Scobie bases his quest for the historical John mainly upon the Q source. He argues that “the Q source is the most reliable: it is the earliest, it contains the greatest proportion of material concerning John, it has the highest estimate of John, and it contains the clearest evidence of Semitisms.” Ibid, 17. 158 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 and Acts.”522 My aim, however, is to demonstrate that the evangelists present John’s and Jesus’ relationship differently, and that Luke’s depiction of this relationship is heavily influenced by his attitude towards those in the writings of Mark and Matthew. I focus on Luke’s narrative reorganization of the thematic relationship between the two figures, and I shall therefore discuss neither the historicity of their mutual relationship nor of John’s baptism.523 This chapter will examine how Luke isolates Jesus’ baptism from John’s public ministry through his use of two significant literary changes: Compared to Mark and Matthew, Luke inserts John’s imprisonment before his account of Jesus’ baptism (Lk 3:18-20), and Jesus is baptized after the people were baptized (compare Mt 3:5-6) without the presence of the baptizer (Lk 3:21-22, compare Mk 1:9 and Mt 3:13). Luke consequently introduces Jesus’ public ministry in prolongation of John’s ministry, but avoids any direct connection between the two, contrary to Mark and Matthew. In what follows, I shall demonstrate how Luke’s depiction of the end of John’s ministry can be read as deliberate literary and thematic modifications of the accounts of Mark and Matthew. In particular, I shall illustrate how Luke throughout his account displays a highly creative attitude towards the narratives of his predecessors. This, in turn, makes the presupposition of a lost source superfluous. If Luke is a later rewriting that modifies upon his sources, there is no need for the hypothesis that a lost logia source distinguishes between “John and the One to come” (Q 3:16- 17). The chapter opens with a survey of how John’s imprisonment appears in a new literary context in Luke compared to Mark and Matthew (Lk 3:18-20 NM and RM, compare Mk 1:14 and Mt 4:12). Luke’s anticipated account on John’s incarceration is reserved material that follows Luke’s new material on John’s proclamation of ‘the good news (εὐηγγελίζετο) to the people’ (Lk 3:18) (7.1.). In this section, an overview of Lk 3 demonstrates that all of Mt 3 is incorporated in Lk 3, however rewritten according to Luke’s theological thread. Luke moreover reserves Matthew’s idea of having an account on Jesus’ genealogy from Mt 1 to Lk 3. Does Luke’s reorganization of the narrative on John and on his baptism disclose his particular reading of Matthew’s account? The next section (7.2.) explores how Luke introduces Jesus’ public ministry after the time of John’s baptism (Lk 3:21-22, resumed in Acts 1:22) and with no explicit mention of John as a baptizer (compared to Mt 3:16). This section moreover

522 Wink 1968, 1; emphasis added. 523 Ernst, for example, discusses the historical relationship between the two figures in Ernst 1989, 59. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 159 explores what interpretive implications are at stake in Luke’s literary changes (7.2.). This question is followed (in 7.3.) by an analysis of the ways in which Luke diminishes John’s role as a baptizer and accentuates the difference between three baptisms: John’s Baptism, Jesus’ unique baptism524 and the Messiah’s baptism.525 The final subsection details how Luke in Acts refers to John’s baptism with both new and reserved material, which informs us of Luke’s explicit reorganization of previous narratives.

7.1.1. Anticipation of John’s imprisonment (Lk 3:18-20) The four gospels all present John as a figure who precedes Jesus in the narrative chronology. They also agree to let John announce a coming figure. Nevertheless, there are important deviations in their various depictions of the relationship between the two figures. The Gospel of John for instance records a period in the life of Jesus when the latter works in close association with the Baptist (Jn 3:22). This early Judean ministry is incompatible with the synoptic assertion that it was not until John was arrested that Jesus began his ministry (Mk 1:14; Mt 4:12; Lk 3:18-20).526 Similarly, Luke’s account disagrees with Mark and Matthew on the question, of whether or not the two figures ever met. As mentioned above, Matthew describes a personal meeting between John and Jesus, in which John is embarrassed to receive Jesus in order to baptize him (Mt 3:13-15). This unique Matthean sequence reflects a master-disciple situation, which Luke has omitted. Compared to Luke 3, Matthew announces the reason for John’s imprisonment as late as in Mt 14:3: ‘For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him to prison on account of Herodias, his brother

524 Luke reads Jesus’ baptism as a unique baptism in the sense that the description of the voice from heaven as a theophany is told as exclusively reserved to Jesus (Lk 3:21-22). 525 The Messiah’s baptism promised by the baptizer in Lk 3:15-18 is told to be realized in Acts 2:38-39, which shall be compared to and distinguished from The Great Commission in Mt 28:16-20. Acts 18:24-19:7 refers to a baptism in the name of Jesus Christ (19:5), and contrasts John’s baptism with Messiah’s baptism. The latter is linked to Jesus’ identity as the anointed one (18:28). 526 The Gospel of John tells that ‘John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison’ (Jn 3:24) in the narrative context, which relates the two figures’ baptizing activity in the Judean countryside (Jn 3:22-4:3). Jesus has moreover visited before this double baptizing activity. The moment of John’s imprisonment seems to be an object of contention when we compare the four gospels. Each of the synoptic gospels presents the end of John’s ministry and the beginning of that of Jesus according to how it relates to John’s imprisonment. Dibelius argues in 1911 that Mark initiated such a delimitation: “Mk. 1.14 knüpft das Auftreten Jesu an die Gefangennahme des Täufers; Jesus beginnt mit seiner Predigt erst, als Johannes nicht mehr wirken kann.“ Dibelius 1911, 59. I agree with Dibelius that this delimitation could be a construction on the part of Mark. I further argue that Matthew follows Mark, and Luke finally modifies upon both. 160 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Philip’s wife.’527 This information follows an account in which Matthew conflates Jesus and John’s identity: ‘At the time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; and he said to his servants, This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him’ (Mt 14:1-2).528 Luke’s rewriting of this account produces the opposite sense. Herod’s response to those who wonder if Jesus is John ‘raised from the dead (ἠγέρθη ἐκ νεκρῶν) (Lk 9:7)’529 is ironic: ‘Herod said, “John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?” And he tried to see him’ (Lk 9:8-9). Luke’s counter-narrative on this sequence denies that Jesus should be a revived John.530 Luke confirms that Herod has rejected John (Lk 3:18-20) and he adds to the Markan and Matthean account that Herod is curious to meet Jesus. In Mt 14:1-2 Matthew is ambiguous on the relationship between John and Jesus and on their respective authority. Luke modifies this account in order to paint a clearer picture of Jesus’ superiority to John. Luke is a counter-narrative that corrects and responds to earlier accounts on the personal relationship between Jesus and John. The story in Luke 3:1-4:14 makes a sharp distinction between the public ministries of John and Jesus.531 From the end of John’s ministry in Jordan with his imprisonment (Lk 3:18-20) to the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee (Lk 4:14) Luke inserts narrative material on Jesus’ baptism without John and without mention of location (3:21-22). Luke also adds Jesus’ genealogy here (3:23-38); and Jesus’ travel from Jordan to the wilderness, where he stays in forty days and is exposed to temptation (4:1-13). By contrast, Mark and Matthew both mention John’s imprisonment in the introductory part of their accounts of Jesus’ public ministry in Galilee, viz.,

527 Compare Mk 6:17. 528 The reasons for John’s imprisonment in Mark and Matthew follow the rejection of Jesus at Nazareth (Mk 6:1-6; Mt 13:54-58), and in Mark also the mission of the twelve (Mk 6:6-13). 529 Here Jesus’ identity is linked to ‘being raised from the dead’ (Lk 9:7). Luke implicitly questions if John or Jesus is the Messiah, which recalls the crowds doubt in Lk 3:15. In the earlier occurrence the Messiah identity is linked to the baptism ‘with the Holy Spirit and fire’ (Lk 3:16). 530 Ross S. Kraemer discusses “the relationship between John and Jesus in early Christian narratives” and reads the synoptic gospels and Josephus’ accounts on John’s death in a narrative critical perspective. Ross S. Kraemer, “Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer: A (Christian) Theological Strategy?” JBL 125/2 (2006): 321-349, 348. He argues that the need to refute the view that Jesus was John redivivus drives both the story of John’s death and of John’s baptism of Jesus. Ibid, 342, 348. 531 See 4.1.2. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 161

‘Now after John was arrested (παραδοθῆναι),532 Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God’ (Mk 1:14) and ‘Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested (παρεδόθη), he withdrew to Galilee’ (Mt 4:12). Through his account of John’s imprisonment Luke anticipates Mark’s and Matthew’s transition from John’s public ministry to that of Jesus. The evangelist closes his summary on John’s ministry with a reference to John’s exhortations and his end:

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up (κατέκλεισεν) John in prison (ἐν φυλακῇ) (Lk 3:18-20).533

John’s imprisonment is reserved material that Luke has inserted in an earlier narrative context than is the case in Mark and Matthew (Lk 3:18-20 compared to Mk 1:14; 6:17-18 and Mt 4:12; 14:3-4, RM). Luke’s literary change separates John’s public ministry from that of Jesus. Jesus’ baptism, genealogy and temptation thereby become a threefold introduction to Jesus’ ministry without John. Consequently, if Luke is a rewriting of Mark and Matthew, the evangelist has modified the narrative chronology he found in his sources: John’s incarceration makes an end to his activity as a baptizer. Luke places John in prison before Jesus’ baptism scene, and omits John’s martyrdom534 (Mk 6:19-29 and Mt 14:5-12, OM). To consider this a

532 Lone Fatum argues that the term ‘to hand over’ (παραδίδωµι) is related to Judas in Mk 3:19 and in Mt 10:4. Lone Fatum, “Judas som teologisk project” in Thomas L. Thompson and Henrik Tronier (eds.) Frelsens biografisering, (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2004) 147-176, 156; 165. Luke on the contrary, does not describe Judas with this verb, but as a ‘traitor (προδότης)’ in Lk 6:16. It is striking that Luke replaces the term ‘to hand over’ by ‘shutting up in prison’ in Lk 3:20. And reserves this term παραδίδωµι to tell what happens to Jesus in Lk 20:20 and :13. 533 Mark and Matthew tell in a later context that John is ‘in prison (ἐν φυλακῇ)’ (Mk 6:17 and Mt 14:3). Luke does not repeat that John is imprisoned when Matthew has it: ‘When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing” (Mt 11:2). Like Matthew, Luke tells us that John sent his disciples to Jesus, but only implicitly says that John is not free to go there on his own (Lk 7:18). It can be a stylistic choice to avoid repetition, but these occurrences do not explain why Luke anticipates John’s imprisonment (Lk 3:20). 534 This omission makes an adherent to the 2SH argue that “Q appears to lack an account of John’s death.” Kraemer 2006, 321. Kraemer’s remark discloses the presupposition that the evangelist rewrote his sources faithfully. According to the L/M hypothesis this Lukan modification rather discloses that Luke omitted part of Matthew, and had no problem in doing so. By contrast, it seems to be a problem for Q-defenders that Luke should have omitted Matthean material while rewriting it. 162 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 stylistic choice535 is to ignore that John’s absence at Jesus’ baptism makes sense in light of how the Baptist is portrayed throughout the Lukan double work. Luke’s description of the baptizer’s public ministry from its beginning to its end is condensed in just twenty verses (Lk 3:1-20). Acts has several mentions of John’s inferior baptism, but it adds no further details on the baptizer’s activity.536 If the reserved material in Luke 3:18-20 discloses a new theological layer of that Baptist figure, then Luke’s restructuring of previous narratives should be reconsidered. Luke’s portrait of the baptizer is immensely creative. This naturally also impacts our understanding of his use of sources. Before the analysis of Luke’s use of Mt 3:1-17, I propose “a schematic view” of how the transition from John’s ministry to that of Jesus is told differently by the three synoptic gospels.

7.1.2. The End of John’s Ministry in Luke’s Narrative Structure First, a survey of how Luke anticipates John’s imprisonment and inserts it in a new literary context compared to Mark and Matthew (cf. the underscore). In Mark, Jesus figures heavily in the evangelist’s depiction of John’s public ministry:

- John’s public ministry (Mk 1:2-8). - Jesus is baptized by John (Mk 1:9). - Description of Jesus’ baptism scene (Mk 1:10-11). - Jesus in the wilderness and the temptation (Mk 1:12-13).537 - John is in prison. Jesus moves to Galilee and begins his public ministry (Mk 1:14).

535 Webb argues: “While it may be true that Luke places a clear division between the ministry of John and Jesus, such a statement fails to appreciate the literary style by which an author may jump back and forth chronologically in order to link themes together. (…) Thus, Luke is not attempting to suggest that Jesus was actually baptized after John had been imprisoned. Thematic placement should not be confused with chronological order.” Webb 1991, 64-65. I argue on the contrary that Luke’s modification changes the chronological order in the narrative. 536 Acts fails to tell more about John the Baptizer as a figure contemporary to Jesus, but stresses the mention of John’s inferior baptism. 537 Johann J. Griesbach argued that Mark rewrites a Lukan rewriting of Matthew and that Mark gives a brief summary of the narrative of the temptations in Mt. 4:1-11 and Lk 4:1-13. Johann J. Griesbach, Bernhard Orchard (trans. and ed.) “A Demonstration That Mark Was Written after Matthew and Luke: A Translation of J. J. Griesbach’s Commentatio qua Marci Evangelium totum e Matthaei et Lucae commentariis decerptum esse monstratur,” in Bernard Orchard J. J. Griesbach: Synoptic and text- Critical Studies 1886-1976, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 103-135, 124. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 163

In Matthew, Jesus also partakes in John’s ministry, and the evangelist introduces the theme that John is embarrassed to receive Jesus (Mt 3:14- 15):

- John’s public ministry (Mt 3:1-12, AM). - Jesus comes to be baptized by John (Mt 3:13, AM). - John first rejects but finally consents to baptize Jesus (Mt 3:14-15, NM). - Description of Jesus’ baptism (Mt 3:16-17, AM). - Jesus in the wilderness and the temptation (Mt 4:1-11, AM). - John is in prison. Jesus moves to Galilee and begins his public ministry (Mt 4:12f, AM).

Luke describes John’s ministry in a summarily fashion and omits the Matthean theme of John’s embarrassment (Mt 3:14-15).538 Luke moreover resolves the problem behind this Matthean addition (to Mk 1:2-8) by a thorough narrative rearrangement of John’s ministry, in which Jesus now does not partake. Luke has linked Jesus’ baptism to the theophany,539 to Jesus’ genealogy and the temptation scene. These three narrative elements introduce Jesus’ ministry (Lk 4:14) without any mention of John:

- John’s preaching and baptism activity (Lk 3:1-18, AM, NM and OM). - Herod puts John in prison as a response to John’s preaching (Lk 3:19- 20, AM). - Jesus is baptized after the people were baptized (Lk 3:21-22, AM). Resumed in Acts: ‘after the baptism (µετὰ τὸ βάπτισµα) that John announced (ἐκήρυξεν)’ (Acts 10:37). - Jesus’ age ‘when he began his work’ (Lk 3:23) and his genealogy (Lk 3:23-38, AM). - Jesus in the wilderness (returned from the Jordan and led by the Spirit) and temptation (Lk 4:1-13, AM).540

538 Luke reserves the motive ‘Jesus coming to John’ for an earlier section (Lk 1:43) see 6.1.3. 539 Webb argues that the evangelists have associated Jesus’ baptism with a prophetic call-vision, which he refers to as a theophany. He argues that they originally were “two separate events.” Webb 2009, 142. It is, however, artificial to separate Jesus’ baptism from the theophany in the synoptic gospels’ account in order to explain a historical kernel of the account. I argue that we find an initial description of Jesus’ baptism in Mark’s account which combines the baptism with a theophany (Mk 1:9-11). 540 By comparison, the Gospel of John has no mention of a temptation story preceding Jesus’ entry on the public scene. 164 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

- The beginning of Jesus’ public ministry (returned to Galilee in the power of the Holy Spirit) (Lk 4:14, AM; resumed in Acts 10:37-38).

This threefold introduction (from Lk 3:21 to Lk 4:13) excludes John from Jesus’ public ministry. The themes of baptism, genealogy and temptation fill out the narrative between John’s imprisonment (Lk 3:20) and Jesus’ entry on the public scene (Lk 4:14). Green is right in claiming that Luke delays Jesus’ appearance on the public scene.541 Contrary to Mark and Matthew, Luke depicts how Jesus leaves the Jordan before the temptation (Lk 4:1, compare Mk 1:12 and Mt 4:1), and hereby Luke modifies the location. The anticipation of John’s imprisonment linked to the separation of John’s and Jesus’ locations produces a new geographical and chronological order in Luke. This alternative account has vast implications for our understanding of Luke’s literary relationship to Matthew. Luke moves John’s disappearance from the public scene to an earlier narrative context compared to Mark and Matthew.542 John’s imprisonment therefore stands as reserved material in Luke. Luke tells that the beginning (Lk 3:1) and the end of John’s public activity both take place in the days of ‘Herod the ruler (‘Ηρῴδης ὁ τετράρχης)’ (Lk 3:19, compare Mt 14:1).543 Consequently, Luke’s double mention of Herod becomes an inclusio, in which Luke inserts what he has to tell about John’s public activity (from 3:1-20).544 Like Josephus in the Antiquities, so too Luke omits the details on John’s legendary death. Compared to Mark and Matthew, Luke hereby avoids to narrate a martyrdom which could be seen as being in competition to Jesus’ passion story. Josephus mentions that Herod puts John to death (Ant. 18.117). He does not tell if John was beheaded, nor does he mention any

541 Green 1997, 183-184. 542 Conzelmann conveys that John the Baptist’s exit in Luke 3:19-20 omits the details upon John’s end, while in Lk 9:9 we learn incidentally of his death. This makes Conzelmann argue that here John’s fate is that of the prophets and not an eschatological event: “Sein Schicksal ist das der Propheten, ist nicht eschatologischer Vorgang.” Conzelmann 1964, 20. Fitzmyer, on the contrary, argues that the verses about John’s imprisonment in Luke “constitute the first of Lucan transpositions.” Fitzmyer 1981, 476. This is what I alternatively read as reserved material. Fitzmyer refers to his list of Lukan transpositions of Markan material, in which he reads this modification as Luke’s “effort to finish off the story of John before the ministry - and even the baptism! - of Jesus.” Ibid, 71. 543 Thus Goulder argues that Luke’s ‘Herod the tetrarch’ is in common with Mt 14:1 and against Mark’s ‘King Herod’ Mk 6:14. Goulder 1989, 278. 544 Goulder reads Luke’s double mention of Herod connected to John’s ministry as an inclusion. Goulder 1989, 279. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 165 martyrdom. He does however characterize John’s execution as unfair: ‘But to some of the Jews the destruction of Herod’s army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist’ (Ant. 18.116).545 Josephus stresses John’s ethical preaching and his demand of right behaviour as a preliminary to baptism: ‘They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behaviour (δικαιοσύνῃ προεκκεκαθαρµένης)’ (Ant. 18.117). By comparison, Luke adds that the baptizer expects a conversion, which requires a radical change of lifestyle (in Lk 3:10-14):

And the crowds asked him. “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations, and be satisfied with your wages.”

On two points, i.e. John’s martyrdom and his ethical preaching, Luke agrees with Josephus against Mark and Matthew. Luke challenges Mark and Matthew’s accounts on John’s death by his omission of the legendary details. Ross S. Kraemer suggests that the entire narrative on John’s death in Mark and Matthew “is a fabrication designed to respond to a particular internal dilemma, whose only probable historical veracity lies in its report that Herod Antipas had John the Baptizer executed.”546 The way Luke restructures John’s portrait is strikingly similar to Josephus’ account of the same, and their common interest in John’s ethical request invites to a comparison of the two sources. Mason has done so in his analysis of the early Christian figures that are mentioned by both Josephus and Luke.547 From his observations on common figures and common literary aims he argues that Luke was familiar with Josephus.548 Following Mason, one can argue that Luke was a reader of Josephus. Luke’s portrait of John the Baptist could consequently be inspired by that given by Josephus. On this specific ethical account (Lk 3:10-14), which Luke adds as new material

545 Josephus describes John as a political threat to Herod. In Ant. 18.117-118. 546 Kraemer 2006, 340. 547 Mason 2003, 213-250. 548 Mason 2003, 277. Mason argues about Luke-Acts: “We know of no other work that even remotely approximated Josephus’ presentation on such a wide range of issues.” Mason 2003, 292. Pervo also defends the view that Luke knew Josephus’ work and he argues: “Postulating that Luke utilized Josephus also answers more questions than it raises.” Pervo 2009, 12. 166 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 compared to Mark and Matthew, one could argue for a Lukan reuse of Josephus’ account. It is noteworthy that Luke-Acts follows Josephus both in omitting John’s martyrdom and in adding John’s ethical preaching. This similarity adds to the complexity of how Luke used his sources. This is another case where the issue of Lukan dependence on the writings of others (be they Josephus and/or Mark and Matthew) has priority before one turns to the search for a common source. The main thesis of my argument is that Luke has condensed and reorganized his narrative on John according to his particular theological agenda, which is vastly different from that of Matthew. From John’s imprisonment, the latter of the two concurrent figures, Jesus, is left alone to fill out the section (Lk 3:21-4:13), which introduces his public ministry (from Lk 4:14). The narrative anticipation of John’s incarceration is a structural change that thoroughly modifies the content of the narrative: Luke removes the Baptist from the public scene when Jesus achieves authority through baptism with the spirit (3:21-22). John is already a past figure at the end of Jesus’ stay in the wilderness with the temptation scene (4:1-13). Lk 4:14-44 further depicts how Jesus returns to Galilee and begins his preaching there without any mention of John the Baptist: ‘Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country’ (Lk 4:14, compare Mk 1:14; Mt 4:12). Luke also separates the locations linked to the figures: John’s ministry is at Jordan, Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Mark and Matthew explicitly indicate that Jesus comes from Galilee to be baptized in the Jordan (Mk 1:9; Mt 3:13). This geographical indication is, however, not repeated in Luke.549 Luke elsewhere adds details on Jesus’ travels. Fitzmyer reads this omission as a Lukan “redactional modification” of the Markan source.550 In his commentary he argues that Luke’s anticipation of John’s imprisonment “serves to remove him from the scene before Jesus appears.”551 Fitzmyer, who reads the section on Jesus’ baptism as a response to Mark, admits that Luke has a rewriting attitude to his Markan source. Fitzmyer moreover explains that the Lukan account on John’s

549 Conzelmann’s introduction to geographical indications in Lukan theology has a triparty distinction between Galilee, the journey, and Judea in Luke. He argues that the Jesus departure from the area of John the Baptist is an example of Lukan redaction of previous sources. He does not defend a Lukan rewriting of Matthew, but he is aware of Luke’s redactional choices in his innovative perspective. Conzelmann 1964, 21. 550 Fitzmyer 1981, 476. 551 Fitzmyer 1981, 476. Green agrees and adds that Luke accentuates a separation between the two figures: “Luke’s concern is to move John off the stage before introducing Jesus in Lk 3:21; in doing so he raises again the theme of opposition.” Green 1997, 183. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 167 imprisonment only is intelligible “because we know the longer form of the story from Mark and Matthew.”552 This is a harmonizing way of reading the gospels. The reader who only has access to Luke would not suppose that John baptized Jesus after his imprisonment. The literary change has an impact on the story Luke tells. In his later approach to theological themes in Luke, Fitzmyer affirms that “in depicting John imprisoned by Herod even before the baptism of Jesus takes place, Luke has in effect finished off the story of John’s ministry and removed him from the scene before the ministry of Jesus self begins.”553 In the latter analysis of the sequence Fitzmyer focuses more on the separation between the two ministries than between the two figures. I argue, however, that Luke’s rewritten portrait of John modifies our understanding of the relationship between Matthew and Luke. Luke not only modifies Mark, he also corrects Matthew’s account that tells of two interwoven ministries. Luke disagrees with both and corrects them according to his own agenda in rewriting John’s incarceration and Jesus’ baptism scene. I maintain that Luke’s modifications must be studied in light of how he follows Matthew in telling of the temptation of Jesus, but omits to follow Matthew who tells the imprisonment right after (Lk 4:14 compare Mt 4:12). I shall therefore continue my analysis of the ideological foundations for Luke’s literary changes and test them as modifications of Matthew.

7.1.3. Luke’s Separation of Jesus from John Luke’s reshaping of the Baptist’s ministry is coherent with his distinction between former times and the new era of ‘the good news’ (Lk 3:18). The latter is the time of Luke-Acts, and here Luke includes John in this era. However, Luke’s understanding of the temporal aspects of John’s ministry is marked by some ambiguity. For he further has Jesus saying to the Pharisees: ‘the law and the prophets were in effect554 until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force’ (Lk 16:16). In the 1950s, Conzelmann emphasizes Luke’s picture of John the Baptist as mainly negative and polemical.555 He sees in Luke a clear separation between Jesus and John and reads 16:16 as

552 Fitzmyer 1981, 476. 553 Fitzmyer 1989, 105-106. 554 There is no verbal part in the Greek text. 555 Conzelmann 1964, 173. Cf. Conzelmann’s thesis, see 5.2. He follows Bultmann’s assessment of how the synoptic gospels develop a negative interpretation of John. From his form critical perspective, Bultmann argues that this material is “Christianizing editing” of tradition about John. He hereby presumes a competition between John’s and Jesus’ disciples. Bultmann 1963, 246. 168 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

“eine direkte Konfrontation Jesus-Israel.”556 His interpretation of this relationship as being in opposition of one another, or even in direct confrontation, is excessive. Still Luke’s distinction between an old and a new epoch is important, and it is a new narrative thread compared to Mark and Matthew. That Luke tells the end of John’s ministry as early as possible has been assessed as a typical Lukan thread since Conzelmann. In his 1977-commentary, Ernst agrees with, and further develops, Conzelmann’s thesis that John’s imprisonment in Luke 3:18-20 separates the ministries of John and Jesus.557 Ernst argues that the anticipated imprisonment has thematic importance. It tells “Das Ende des Johannes.”558 Ernst argues: “Die klare Abgrenzung des heilsgeschichtlichen Epochen ist das treibende Motiv: erst nach dem Abtreten des letzten großen Propheten ist die „Bühne frei“ für das öffentliche Auftreten Jesu.”559 Ernst inserts an analysis of the role that John the Baptist plays in the Lukan double work. He stresses the thematic relation between John and Jesus in light of Conzelmann’s thesis.560 Ernst’s 1989-monography on John the Baptist presents a chapter on Luke’s Baptist portrait.561 In his redaction critical analysis of the Baptist figure, Ernst argues that Luke accentuates John’s subordination, but stresses that Luke has interwoven the contrast in a subtle way.562 Ernst is right in his claim that Luke succeeds in highlighting a contrast between two figures, and that Luke by this contrast achieves a clear Christological distinction reserved to Jesus: “Der entscheidende Umbruch liegt in der Christologie, die gewissermaßen gegenläufig zu der beherrschenden Enteschatologisie-rungstendenz – Jesus ist der erhöhte Kyrios! – durch die nach wie vor wichtige Endzeitpredigt des Täufers auf Zukunft hin offengehalten wird.“563 He concludes by relativizing his earlier reading:

556 Conzelmann 1964, 173. 557 “Die Notiz von der Gefangenschaft 3,19 trennt den Täuferteil vom Jesus-Teil (im Sinne der Abgrenzung der Heilsepochen; den Schlüssel gibt 16,16).” Conzelmann 1964, 15. 558 Ernst 1977, 147. Fitzmyer admits that the imprisonment accentuates a distinction between John and Jesus. He also links this distinction to Lk 16:16 and Acts 13:25, and hereby recognizes a specific theological thread in the Lukan double work. Fitzmyer 1981, 476. 559 Ernst 1977, 146. 560 Ernst 1977, 148-151. 561 Josef Ernst, Johannes der Täufer: Interpretation-Geschichte-Wirkungsgeschichte, (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 1989), 81-112. 562 Ernst 1989, 110. 563 Ernst 1989, 110. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 169

Unsere Untersuchung ist zu dem Ergebnis gekommen, daß Johannes heilsgeschicht- lich noch nicht ganz in die Zeit der Erfüllung, aber auch nicht mehr ausschließlich in die Zeit der Verheißung gehört. Er personalisiert vielmehr die Dialektik zwischen der alten Zeit, die vergeht, aber trotzdem weiterlebt in der neuen Zeit Christi. Johannes steht ein für die Kontinuität, nicht aber für die Ablösung der Zeiten.564

Ernst assesses that John as a figure in Luke illustrates a transition from ancient to new times. Fitzmyer also modifies upon his own previous view when he argues that the Lukan John is a transitional figure.565 Ernst and Fitzmyer both evaluate that Conzelmann’s thesis is too radical. By contrast, they relativize the opposition between ‘the precursor’ and ‘the coming one’ and stress John’s transitional role because Luke-Acts is ambiguous on John’s role. However, these redaction critical exegetes rightly assess that Luke accentuates John’s subordination to Jesus compared to Mark. Fitzmyer pertinently analyses how Luke creatively rewrites Mark’s account on Jesus’ baptism,566 but the exegete harmonizes the evangelists’ motives when he argues: “The evangelists portray Jesus as a sort of disciple of John, accepting his baptism as a mark of initial association with him and recognizing it as a preparatory stage of his own ministry.”567 Fitzmyer recognizes that Luke has one part on John’s ministry (3:1-20) and a second part “devoted to the scenes in the life of Jesus which launch his ministry (3:21-4:13).”568 Still, he argues that Lk 3:7-21 “represents Luke’s way of telling what is found in Mark 1:11, Matt 3:1-17, John 1:19-28.”569 In his opinion these four accounts all share a common beginning. I argue, on the contrary, that John’s baptism must not be defined as the beginning of Matthew and Luke, as both begin with infancy stories. Furthermore, Fitzmyer mentions that Acts echoes this “common” beginning. In his reading, the annunciation story and the echoes of John’s ministry in Lk 16:16 and in Acts 1:22; 10:37; 13:24 only relativize John’s role as a precursor to be also a transitional figure.570 But he does not recognize any conflict between the Lukan double work and the other gospels’ depictions

564 Ernst 1989, 112. 565 Fitzmyer 1989, 59-63. 566 Fitzmyer 1981, 479-480. 567 Fitzmyer 1981, 482. Fitzmyer follows Dibelius’ form-critical presupposition: Mark had access to and rewrote tradition which transmitted that Jesus was a disciple of John and Mark therefore links the figures together: “Wir dürfen es sagen: zwischen den Zeilen des Markusberichtes liest man, daß Jesus einmal Anhänger des Täufers gewesen ist (…) Die Nachricht von der Taufe Jesu war dem Markus überliefert; er konnte sie nicht umgehen, darum nahm er sie auf.” Dibelius 1911, 65-66. 568 Fitzmyer 1981, 450. 569 Fitzmyer 1981, 450. 570 Fitzmyer 1981, 451. 170 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 of Jesus’ baptism scene. Fitzmyer is guided by the narrative sequence on John’s ministry, which all four gospels have in common. He analyses Luke’s relationship to Mark, and he is right to be skeptical of Luke’s dependence on Q for the Baptist portrait.571 Fitzmyer’s redactional critical approach accentuates that Luke has a particular theological agenda in describing John’s baptism, but he fails to compare Luke with Matthew because he assumes and asserts their mutual independence and their independent use of Mark. Fitzmyer and Ernst both add new insights on how Luke has modified upon Mark from his own theological agenda. However, their source critical assumptions make their analyses of the Lukan Baptist portrait incomplete. Recently, Rothschild has challenged the point on John’s subordination to Jesus. She claims that redaction criticism has overemphasized the evangelist’s negative assessment of John the Baptist, and argues in favour of John’s authority: “John is only subordinated to Jesus in minor redactional alterations of received traditions.”572 She further argues: “the evangelists demonstrate a collective desire to depict the Jesus movement in close association with John.”573 Her assumption is that the four gospels disclose Baptist fragments as forms to which the evangelists allocated new contexts.574 She argues in favour of “the overall trend indulged by all of lauding John and prizing an association with him.”575 On her own hypothesis she argues:

The present analysis reveals the prominence accorded to John in the canonical gospels and, not just willingness, but frequently, desire on the part of the evangelists to closely associate the ministries of these two men. The Gospel of John together with the other Synoptic accounts attaches a certain cachet to John and his ministry that was probably in some measure historical.576

Rothschild is right in relativizing the negative picture of the baptizer given by redaction criticism. However, I disagree with her source critical assumptions and with her quest for the historical John, because she presumes that Matthew and Luke are mutually independent, while she focuses upon John the Baptist in Q.

571 On the minor agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark in Lk 3:1-6 Fitzmyer argues: “Hence, though the suggestion that Luke may be using “Q” material in part here is not impossible, the issue is not easily decided.” Fitzmyer 1981, 452. 572 Rothschild 2005, 49. 573 Rothschild 2005, 49. 574 Rothschild 2005, 51. 575 Rothschild 2005, 51. 576 Rothschild 2005, 51. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 171

The points of contact between Matthew and Luke are central to my analysis and my attempt to disclose an alternative explanation of their common material. Luke amplifies his portrait of the Baptist in order to minimize what in his view could lead to erroneous interpretations of John in the previous gospels. I therefore focus upon the development Luke makes on the figure compared to Matthew. What happens in between these two gospels? And can we learn something new regarding the interrelationship of the synoptic gospels from Luke’s narrative about John the Baptist and Jesus? I argue that the ways in which Luke thematically changes John’s subordination to Jesus discloses a redaction, which seems to be a later development on his part of earlier accounts. I find it to be plausible that Luke for his portrait of John was dependent on those in Mark and Matthew. The priority in Lukan studies must be to study the distinct literary relationship between Matthew and Luke. Many literary changes in Luke can be explained with reference to the literary dependency of the latter upon the former. This is precisely the point that Goulder sustains in his argument that the entire gospel of Luke should be considered ‘rewritten Matthew.’ Goulder dispenses with Q and approaches Luke as a critical reader of Matthew. He regards Luke as an expanded narrative and searches for a literary strategy behind Luke’s changes.577 I agree with Goulder that Luke rewrote Matthew rather than a lost source, and that Luke did not rewrite Mark independently of Matthew. According to Goulder, Luke sealed off of the story of the Baptist, just as he sealed off each of his previous stories in compartments that alternates between John and Jesus. Luke brings John’s imprisonment forward as an attempt “to draw the John sequence to a firm close.”578 Goulder does not question who baptizes Jesus. He argues that Luke’s change is a redactional modification of both Mark and Matthew, which discloses the distinct motive of John’s subordination to Jesus as accentuated by Luke. Goulder presumes that Luke’s theological agenda is visible through this literary change:

He wishes to keep John in a clear secondary place, and this can be done effectively by putting him in prison as early as possible; and it may be that he has also in mind that John’s Question from Prison has to come earlier in his narrative than in Matthew’s, at 7.18f.579

577 Goulder 1989, 270. 578 Goulder 1989, 279. 579 Goulder 1989, 279. 172 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Evans, on the contrary, calls the imprisonment “a literary device for rounding off the section on John”580 and rejects Conzelmann’s initial interpretation of the imprisonment as a thematically significant change in Luke. I disagree with Evans’ reading of the Lukan change as simply stylistic. He presupposes a common lost source, and consequently he makes no comparison between Matthew and Luke. In his analysis of John from a historical viewpoint, Tilly argues that Luke takes over John’s anticipated imprisonment from Q.581 According to Tilly’s chart on Q passages, Mt 11:12 and Lk 3:20 disclose that Q has a narrative sequence about John’s imprisonment by Herod.582 However, that John was arrested at some point is presupposed but not narrated in the Q material established by the Critical Edition of Q.583 Noting this incoherence Goodacre argues:

In Q 7:18-19, John sends disciples to ask questions of Jesus, and subsequently Jesus places his activity very much in the past, “What did you go out to see?” (7:24 and 7:26). It appears to be the case that John has been arrested; it is presupposed that his active ministry is over and he is unable to go and ask these questions of Jesus himself. What Q appears to presuppose is once more made clear in the triple tradition material: that John was arrested at a point after his preaching but prior to this incident (Mark 1:14 // Matt 4:12 // Luke 3:20). Perhaps, again, this material was composed by an evangelist like Matthew in the light of the earlier development of his own narrative.584

In my view, when Luke places John’s incarceration in direct contrast to Jesus’ baptism, he disagrees and modifies the narrative order of both Mark and Matthew. Recent commentaries like Bovon and Klein follow Evans in analyzing Luke and Matthew as two independent texts. Bovon states that it is obvious that Jesus’ baptism has taken place before John’s imprisonment.585 He moreover argues that Luke follows Q in Lk 1-9; 15-18, and he holds that Luke further follows Mark in Lk 3:19586 on the account of John’s incarceration. He analyses this Lukan account as a stylistic improvement of

580 Evans 1990, 244. In Wink’s redaction-critical comparison of the gospels’ Baptist portrait he argues: “by a literary tour de force John is imprisoned before he baptizes Jesus, even though his presence is assumed in 3:21f.” Wink 1968, 46. 581 Tilly 1994, 85. This is in line with Kloppenborg’s argument when he asserts that differences between Luke and Matthew disclose that Luke has edited Mark independently of Matthew. Kloppenborg 2000, 41. 582 Tilly 1994, 145. 583 Robinson 2000, 118-119. 584 Goodacre 2002, 183. 585 Bovon 1991, 162. 586 Bovon 1991, 163. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 173

Mk 6:17-18. He does not recognize a problem or a contradiction in the fact that Luke anticipates this imprisonment.587 Klein, on the contrary, reads it as the end of John’s public activity. He explains this anticipation in an apologetical way: “Es entsteht der Eindruck, daß Jesus gar nicht vom Täufer getauft wurde. Aber es geht Lk nur darum, anzuzeigen, daß Jesus als der Stärkere dessen Funktion übernimmt und überbietet.”588 Klein admits that the imprisonment can be interpreted as if Jesus is not baptized by John. He reads it, with Goulder and Ernst, as Luke’s stress on Jesus’ superiority. John’s anticipated imprisonment in Luke strikes a different note if it is read in direct comparison with the Matthean account. As we have seen, Luke furthermore agrees with Matthew against Mark on John’s public ministry on several points. Luke disagrees with both Mark and Matthew on John’s clothing, diet, martyrdom and moment of imprisonment, and the reason for these changes could be Luke’s creativity in rewriting his sources.589 It makes quite a difference if John’s imprisonment in Luke is read as a result of his literary style or as reserved material in a rewritten narrative modifying upon its sources. In the first case, Luke makes a condensed picture of John’s ministry because he prefers a shorter account on John in order to save place for other more important subjects. In the second case, Luke reorganizes his narrative because he follows a new theological agenda, which is to tell that John’s ministry belongs in the past. Luke imbues his narrative with a new chronological perspective through his literary separation between the forerunner (John) and the expected figure (Jesus). In contrast to Conzelmann’s thesis, a separation of the figures is not synonymous with a rejection of John’s authority. Luke draws a theological distinction between the two, and reserves for example John’s kingdom preaching in Matthew (Mt 3) for Jesus (Lk 4).590 Luke separates John, who as a preaching figure announces a coming figure (Lk 3:1-20) and Jesus, who prays and receives the Holy Spirit and for whom the heaven opens at the moment of his baptism (Lk 3:21-22). In order to emphasize their mutual differences, John’s ministry has to end before Jesus’ can begin. By contrast, Mark and Matthew explicitly concede

587 Bovon 1991, 174. 588 Klein 2006, 168. 589 In his analysis of the evangelists redactional work upon John’s diet Kelhoffer argues: “Mark 1:6//Matt 3:4, along with Luke’s omission, offers an additional example that there is much about the historical Baptist that the Synoptic evangelists or their sources theologized, exaggerated, misunderstood or deemed irrelevant.” Kelhoffer 2005, 201. 590 See 6.2.2. 174 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 the role as Jesus’ privileged baptizer to John the Baptist.591 These are results of redaction critical readings of Luke’s theological agenda, which are visible in his alternative account on John.592 However, this new insights invites to a revision of the source critical question. It is inconsequent to follow the results of redaction criticism upon Luke’s theological agenda and continue to presuppose Luke’s ignorance of Matthew’s rewritten account of Mark. One should go further and read Luke’s differences as radical modifications on the figure of John and the nature of his baptism. In this light, Luke’s rewritten Baptist portrait demands no Q source. The interpretive choices are highly visible in the new literary form that Luke has given his portrait. This new form modifies the sequence common to Luke’s predecessors on John’s ministry, and it is amplified in the sequences unique to Luke on John’s annunciation and references to John’s baptism in Acts. Luke has thematically developed the figures of John and his baptism throughout his double work. Thus, I see in Luke a sharp distinction between John and Jesus. Luke has gone to great lengths in order to subordinate John to Jesus. This is visible when the Baptist negates the Messiah expectations directed towards him in the Lukan addition (Lk 3:15).593 These examples of Luke’s adapted and new material modifies upon how we can understand the quality of John’s baptism in Luke. In the following subsection I shall argue that Luke has reorganized and modified the personal relationship between the two figures by rewriting all of Mt 3 in Lk 3.

591 I shall summarize how the Gospel of John presents the relationship between the two figures: It tells of two interwoven baptism ministries without mentioning who baptizes Jesus, neither does it tell if the two figures ever meet each other. ‘I myself did not know him’ (Jn 1:33). The Gospel of John refers to the baptizer as John and never as John the Baptist (e.g. Jn 1:6; 19; 26; 28; 35). It is noteworthy that the Gospel of John lets the baptizer tell Jesus’ baptism: ‘and John testified: I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him’ (Jn 1:32). In the synoptic gospels, by contrast, it is the implied narrator who relates Jesus’ baptism (Mk 1:10-11; Mt 3:16-17; Lk 3:21-22). The Lukan narrative contradicts the parallel baptism activity between John and Jesus, which the Gospel of John relates to in Jn 3:25. The Gospel of John has the most expanded account on John’s baptizer activity (Jn 1:19-51 and 3:22-4:3). If Luke reduces the account this can be an effort to downplay the role the baptizer plays in the Gospel of John. For references to a discussion of Luke as the Fourth Gospel see 4.1.2. 592 Böhlemann demonstrates how Luke develops a theological thread by contrasting the teaching of Jesus with that of the Baptist. Böhlemann 1997. C. G. Müller reads Luke’s Baptist portrait in a narrative perspective with insight from studies on prosopography. C. G. Müller 2001, 25-48. These two scholars share an interest in narrative development in Luke and they pay little attention to the 2SH. 593 See 6.2.1. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 175

7.1.4. Luke 3 as Rewritten Matthew 3 It is a literary and ideological change when Luke anticipates John’s imprisonment that signifies the end of his ministry. Consequently, Jesus’ baptism becomes the first part of an introduction to Jesus’ public ministry. The second part is the genealogy (Lk 3:23-38) and the third part is the temptation story (Lk 4:1-14). By these changes, John’s imprisonment concludes Luke’s parallel stories on the two figures. Luke’s anticipation explains why John’s ministry came to an end, and Jesus’ baptism scene introduces a new era.594 The motives behind these changes are both literary and ideological. They disclose that Luke follows a new narrative logic.595 By approaching Luke as an interpretive narrative, the content of Luke 3 can be read as entirely rewritten Matthew (Mt 3:1-12; 4:12; 14:3-4; 3:13-17, 1:1-17). Here I rely on Goulder’s hypothesis that Luke from his description of the Baptist’s ministry in Lk 3:1-20 and till Lk 4:30 is dependent on Matthew’s modifications of Mark:

So Luke’s long solo introduction is complete, he has reached the topic with which Mark began, John’s ἀναδεῖξις, his preaching and baptism of Jesus. But of course Matthew has given an expanded version of Mark over this ground, with the impressive rhetoric of ‘You generation of vipers…’, and no sensible author would choose Mark rather than Matthew as his major authority here. It is indeed Lucan policy to follow one of his predecessors steadily for considerable periods when he can, and he does not in fact leave Matthew, if we except a few brief reminiscences, till Lk. 4.30.596

In a schematic form all the material found in Luke’s third chapter has parallels in Matthew. If the evangelist is a critical reader of Matthew then Luke adapts and rewrites Matthew’s material as follows:

- Mt 3:1-12 John’s public ministry – Lk 3:1-18 (AM)

594 Fitzmyer, on the contrary, reads John’s ministry in Luke as “the inauguration of the Period of Jesus.” Fitzmyer 1981, 477. He rejects Wink’s interpretation of “the discontinuity between the preparatory work of John and the ministry of Jesus.” Wink 1968, 50-51. In my view inauguration and discontinuity are opposites. Luke downplays John’s inaugurating role as a baptizer. Luke omits that Jesus should be baptized by John, which is Matthew’s point (Mt 3:14-15), and hereby Luke avoids to present Jesus as a figure dependent on John. 595 Parsons argues that Luke is a transforming narrative, and that Luke refers to previous Gospel writers in a critical way: “when read in light of ancient rhetoric, especially the progymnasmata, Luke does indeed intend to criticize his predecessors for their failure to write a rhetorically ‘complete and well-ordered’ narrative of Jesus.” Mikeal C. Parsons, Luke: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 40-41. 596 Goulder 1989, 270. 176 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

- Mt 4:12 and 14:3-4 John’s imprisonment – Lk 3:19-20 (RM) - Mt 3:13-17 Jesus’ baptism - Lk 3:21-22 (OM, AM) - Mt 1:1-17 Jesus’ genealogy – Lk 3:23-38 (RM)

This material consists of either verbatim parallels exclusive to Matthew and Luke, such as the eschatological preaching (Lk 3:7-9), or of adapted material, such as the reorganized temptation scene (Lk 4:1-13), or of thematic parallels exclusively shared by Matthew and Luke, such as the fact that Luke adopts the idea of integrating a genealogy into the narrative, although he treats Jesus’ genealogy differently than Matthew (Lk 3:23-38, compare Mt 1:1-17), and reserves it for a later context. In their accounts on John’s ministry, as mentioned above, they also share an omission of Mark’s Malachi 3:1 citation (Mk 1:2).597 It is beyond the frame of this dissertation to analyse the second part of Lk 3 thoroughly (Lk 3:21-38), but Goulder’s point is important to the test case: John’s ministry appears in a literary context in which all of Luke’s narrative sections have parallels in Matthew. Goulder’s proposition contrasts Streeter’s assessment from 1924 that Q recounts Jesus’ baptism:

John’s Preaching, the Baptism, and the Temptation obviously form a single section, and a source which contains the first and third must have contained the second, which not only connects the other two but is the point round which they hinge. Q, therefore, must have contained an account of the Baptism.598

Fitzmyer, Bovon and Klein all presuppose Streeter’s argument about Q in their analysis of John’s baptism. But their ‘need’ for Q ends before John’s imprisonment and Jesus’ baptism.599 As mentioned above, Fitzmyer

597 This is an example of one of many agreements in omission: words and phrases in Mark omitted by Matthew and Luke in comparable narrative contexts. Sanders and Davies 1996, 72. Both the genealogy and the postponement of the Malachi citation are agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark. 598 Streeter 1924, 188. Streeter explains the section on Jesus’ baptism told by the three synoptic gospels as containing Mark/Q overlaps in both Matthew and Luke. In 1930, Creed refers to Matthew and Luke, and argues: “no doubt that a single source lies behind the two Gospels.” Creed 1953 [1930], lxvi. Meier follows Streeter’s argument: “That the Q version of the temptation both presents the spirit as acting on Jesus and describes the testing of Jesus as Son of God argues for a connection of the Q temptation narrative with a Q version of the baptismal story such as we find in Mark (i.e., with the motifs of the spirit descending on Jesus and Jesus as Son of God).” Meier 1994, 103. 599 The International Q Project includes Jesus’ Baptism scene in their reconstruction of Q, see Robinson 2000, 18-21. Webb follows their reconstruction when he argues: “A second line of evidence is the text of Q itself, which suggests that the presence of a baptism/theophany periscope is needed from a narrative perspective.” Webb 2009, 98. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 177 explains Luke’s account on Jesus’ baptism as rewritten Mark. Where Luke coincides with Matthew’s account Fitzmyer argues that the resemblance is coincidental and due to similar redactional changes to Mark.600 Bovon argues that Luke rewrites Q from Lk 3:1-18, and Mark from Lk 3:19.601 He argues that Luke avoids mixing sources and follows first one, and then another source. Klein holds on the contrary that Luke combines Q with Mark in relating John’s messianic preaching, which distinguishes two baptisms (Lk 3:15-17).602 Klein explains Jesus’ baptism as Lukan rewriting of Mk 1:9-11, without Lukan dependence upon Q: “Der Bericht über die Taufe Jesu ist von Lk unter Verwendung der Mk-Parallele (Mk 1,9-11) gestaltet.”603 Schweizer explains John’s ministry in Luke (Lk 3:1-20) as a combination of Mark, Q and Sondertradition. It is striking that he also compares occurrences in Luke to Matthew: “Wie Mt 3,3 bringt Lukas es erst nach dem Hinweis auf die Verkündigung und die Mk 1,2 zitierte Stelle erst 7,27 (Mt 11,10).“604 He stresses that Luke has John describing the two concurrent baptisms (Lk 3:16) with the same words as Matthew (Mt 3:11).605 Schweizer adheres to the Q hypothesis and moreover remarks similitudes with Matthew, which is tautological. It appears from the way these commentaries apply to Q, that Q to them is a plastic source. When Goulder, on the contrary, compares Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts on John’s baptism, there is no variable degree of dependence between the two accounts.606 The material shared by Matthew and Luke discloses some kind of literary dependence, and the most evident solution that one rewrote the other should be tested before claiming their independency and their separate use of Mark.607 With regard to Jesus’ baptism (Lk 3:21-22) Goulder writes:

Kloppenborg does not include the baptism scene in Q. He explains the agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark as redactional, see Kloppenborg 1987, 84-85. For bibliographic references supporting and rejecting that Q contains an account of Jesus’ baptism scene, see Kloppenborg 2000, 93. 600 Fitzmyer 1981, 480. 601 Bovon 1991, 163. See 5.2.2. 602 Klein 2006, 161. “Zur Gestaltung hat sich Lk verschiedener Quellen bedient, die er aufeinander abstimmte und zu einem neuen Ganzen zusammenfügte.“ Ibid, 160. 603 Klein 2006, 169. 604 Schweizer 1982, 46. 605 Schweizer 1982, 47. 606 According to the L/M hypothesis Luke combines Mark and Matthew in the section on John’s messianic preaching (Lk 3:15-17). Goulder 1989, 276. 607 Watson argues that agreements between Matthew and Luke on Jesus’ baptism account in Luke are slight but not negligible: “On the Q theory, Matthew and Luke would again be independently following Mark while blending in some elements from 178 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

With the wording being close in Mark and Matthew, confident claims of dependence on the former should be viewed with caution. Luke agrees with Mark in an opening ἐγένετο (…) His βαπτισθέντος follows Matthew’s βαπτισθείς (…). He agrees with Matthew in the heaven being opened (aor.) against Mark’s ‘rent’ (pres.); and in putting the spirit’s descent before ‘like a dove’ against Mark’s after.608

All four gospels (Mk 1:9-11, Mt 3:13-17, Lk 3:21-22 and Jn 1:32-34) have an account on Jesus’ baptism, and I agree with Goulder that Luke’s description of Jesus’ baptism is adapted material from Mark and Matthew. The Matthean and Lukan account should be compared without resorting to speculations as to a possible lost source for both gospels.609 It is important to adhere to the more neutral description of material common to Matthew and Luke, simply as common material. Next, it should be evaluated if, and if so, to what extent, Luke has used Matthew as a source. There is no need for a logia source in order to explain the Lukan Baptist portrait, which mainly reorganizes what is already found in Mark and Matthew’s accounts on the baptizer. Streeter’s argument that John’s preaching, Jesus’ baptism and his temptation form a single section applies to Mark and Matthew, but not to Luke who inserts John’s incarceration and Jesus’ genealogy before the temptation narrative.610 Luke precisely breaks the order of their threefold section, and proposes another narrative structure through his adaption of material from his predecessors. Streeter questions whether the presupposed logia source has a baptism account or not, whereas a preliminary to such a question should be to establish that a Lukan rewriting of Matthew is impossible. It is striking that Luke inserts Jesus’ genealogy between John’s and Jesus’ ministries. I maintain, in line with Goodacre, that precisely Lk 3 contradicts Luke’s presumed ignorance of Matthew’s modifications of Mark.611

7.2. Jesus’ Baptism With or Without John (Lk 3:21-22) There are several striking differences between the gospels’ renderings of John’s baptism and Jesus’ baptism scene. In Luke, Jesus baptizes himself612

the parallel Q account. On the L/M theory, Luke follows Mark but draws some minor elements from the Matthean redaction.” Watson 2013, 141. 608 Goulder 1989, 281. 609 Cf. 2.1.1. 610 Streeter’s argument therefore adds no information on Q. 611 Goodacre 2002, 49-54. Goodacre challenges Kloppenborg’s assumption that Luke fails to reproduce Matthew’s additions to Mark. 612 Luke does not refer to a baptizer but focuses upon Jesus’ baptism as a theophany. Dibelius compares the ways Matthew and Luke rewrote Mark and remarks that Luke tells a different story: “Zunächst erzählt er die Taufe Jesu überhaupt nicht.” Dibelius Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 179 and Acts entirely ignores the question as to who baptized Jesus. In light of my rewriting perspective, I maintain that Luke modifies Matthew’s account on Jesus’ baptism scene and what precedes it. After the account of John’s proclamation, which results in his imprisonment, Luke recounts the entrance of Jesus on the public scene: ‘Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized (βαπτισθέντος) and was praying (προσευχοµένου), the heaven was opened’ (Lk 3:21).613 In Luke, the location of Jesus’ baptism is omitted.614 Mark and Matthew conversely both specify that Jesus ‘came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan (ἐβαπτίσθη εἰς τὸν ’Ιορδάνην ὑπὸ ’Ιωάννου)’ (Mk 1:9) and ‘(t)hen Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan (ἐπὶ τὸν Ιορδάνην), to be baptized by him’ (Mt 3:13). If the location is presupposed in Luke it is not explicitly repeated as in Mark and Matthew.615 If Luke disagrees with his predecessors here it is not because he ignores them. It is rather because he rewrites this portion of the narrative from a different perspective. Luke’s anticipation of John’s imprisonment disagrees with Mark and Matthew’s introductions to the two ministries as contemporary. As a consequence, Luke erases both the location and the time of Jesus’ baptism, and he thereby modifies the chronological order of the two ministries: the adult Jesus first appears (Lk 3:21) when John has already disappeared from the public scene (Lk 3:19-20). This could be read as a narrative illustration of the baptizer’s remark on Jesus in the Gospel of John: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ (Jn 3:30). Luke’s narrative development of John’s childhood and anticipated exit could be inspired by Luke’s wish to diminish the importance of John’s ministry while heightening that of Jesus.616 I find the anticipated imprisonment in Luke to be a striking element in his portrait of John, and in the previous section we have seen various possible explanations for this Lukan modification. John’s presence at Jesus’ baptism is assumed in an apologetic way by some

1911, 60. Walter Wink reads that Jesus baptized himself. Wink 1968, 83. Müller argues: “Lukas läßt offen, von wem Jesus getauft wird.” C. G. Müller 2001, 198. 613 Compare Mk 1:5, 9; Mt 3:5-6, 13. 614 Conzelmann stresses that Luke makes a straightforward symbolic use of localities: “Eine genaue Ortskunde hat Lukas - das ist deutlich – nicht; gerade deshalb kann er Örtlichkeiten so einfach als sachliche Größen verwenden.” Conzelmann 1964, 15. According to him we are here not in the domain of topography but of literary arrangement. He explains Luke’s omission as an example of how Luke redacted previous sources. Geographical elements were modified corresponding a theological agenda on Galilee, the journey and Judea. Ibid, 21. 615 Luke tells that Jesus’ home is in Galilee (Lk 2:39) and avoids repeating it here. 616 This thematic agreement raises the question of literal dependence between Luke and John. See 4.1.2. 180 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 commentaries, such as Bovon,617 whereas others, such as Conzelmann, accentuate the separation between the figures. He stresses that according to Lk 3:21 “Jesus wird getauft als einer vom Volk, wie jedermann. Lc hat jede Bedeutung des Täufers für den Vorgang ausgeschaltet. Das entspricht seiner gesamten Auffassung vom Wesen des Täufers.”618 Conzelmann reads Luke’s recasting of John as a thematic change. Evans reconciles these readings and argues that in the Lukan narrative Jesus was baptized with John’s baptism but not by John: “Luke appears to envisage Jesus’ baptism as taking place separately, and after John’s baptizing had ceased, since all the people (…) had been baptized.”619 He recognizes that theological reflections on Luke’s part must lie behind his separation of John, the figure, from the baptism to which Jesus submitted.620 Matthew and Mark both state (verbatim) that people ‘were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins (ἐξοµολογούµενοι τὰς ἁµαρτίας αὐτῶν)’ (Mk 1:5; Mt 3:5-6). Luke disagrees on this point. He reserves the information to the summary of Jesus’ baptism, and omits the people’s confessions of sins (Lk 3:21). He has already introduced John as a figure in the wilderness ‘proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (Lk 3:3), and does not repeat it here. Later on, Luke further has Jesus promising about the risen Messiah ‘that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem’ (Lk 24:46-47). If Luke knew Matthew’s rewriting of Mark he disagreed and modified both on this point. In the following section I shall argue against Luke’s presumed ignorance of Matthew’s modifications of Mark.

7.2.1. Jesus’ Baptism Supersedes the Baptizer In this section, I explore C. G. Müller’s arguments on Luke’s characterization of John, and his preliminary assessment of the figure: “Die Taufe Jesu durch Johannes kann als historisch weitgehend gesichert gelten.”621 But what if John did not baptize Jesus? I find it problematic to draw a historical conclusion from a theological account. Luke’s description of Jesus’ baptism is first of all the evangelist’s interpretation. The lack of distinction makes Müller’s statement sound apologetic. In his approach to

617 ”Dans le style d’un historien, Luc rapporte brièvement l’arrestation de Jean (v. 19- 20) et le baptême de Jésus (v. 21-22), qui, naturellement, a eu lieu avant l’arrestation.” Bovon 1991, 162 . 618 Conzelmann 1964, 15. 619 Evans 1990, 246. 620 I do not follow Evans when he argues that Jesus’ baptism by John must be a historical fact despite Luke’s modification (cf. 4.1). Evans 1990, 246. 621 C. G. Müller 2001, 197. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 181 the Baptist figure, Müller follows Ernst’s argument that Jesus’ baptism by John is a fact: “als Factum kaum in Frage gestellt werden kann.”622 Such statements, however, do not help us to understand each gospel’s particular perspective on Jesus’ baptism. We must separate what is historically probable from what each text actually narrates, and moreover we must compare the gospels accounts with that given in Acts. Luke modifies Mark, and here it is important to stress that Luke omits Mark’s ὑπὸ ’Ιωάννου (Mk 1:9). Müller focuses on how Luke has modified the figure: “Ein Vergleich mit der Taufperikope bei Markus zeigt allerdings, daß Lukas stark redaktionell eingegriffen hat.”623 He does not question what consequences the Lukan changes have for Luke’s relationship to Matthew, although he notices that Jesus baptizes himself: “Von Jesus, der sich nach Lk 3,21 selbst taufen läßt, wird eine entsprechende Taufhandlung nicht erzählt.”624 Müller links Luke’s redactional modification to a new meaning of John’s baptism in the Lukan double work: “Bei der Taufe Jesu (Lk 3,21f) wird Johannes überhaupt nicht erwähnt und spielt für das dort Erzählte keine erkennbare Rolle.”625 This argument can be connected to my first example of how Luke modifies the name of the Baptist.626 Acts refers to ‘John’ nine times, but never as Jesus’ baptizer.627 The evangelist behind Luke-Acts either stresses the fact that John baptized: ‘for John baptized (ἐβάπτισεν) with water’ (Acts 1:5) or the quality of John’s baptism in comparison to a surpassing baptism in the Holy Spirit: ‘or he knew only the baptism of John (τὸ βάπτισµα ’Ιωάννου)’628 (Acts 18:25).629 Similarly, Acts refers to the time of ‘John’s baptism’ as a past activity: ‘beginning from the baptism of John (τοῦ βαπτίσµατος ’Ιωάννου) until…’ (Acts 1:22).630 This time reference does not implicitly signify that Jesus was baptized by John. Instead, it informs us that Jesus’ disciples were with Jesus from John’s baptism. Acts refers to John’s function, not to the figure itself, and John’s ministry is referred to as one of proclamations (Acts 10:37). The fact that the narrator in Luke-Acts never designates John as ‘John the Baptist’ has immense implications on how we should read and understand the

622 Josef Ernst, “Johannes der Täufer und Jesus von Nazareth in Historischer Sicht, NTS 43, (1997), 161-183, 166. 623 C. G. Müller 2001, 197. 624 C. G. Müller 2001, 303. 625 C. G. Müller 2001, 307. 626 See 5.2.1. 627 The nine occurrences of the name ‘John’ in Acts are listed in the E section 4.1.2. 628 Cf. Luke twice mentions ‘John’s baptism’ in Lk 7:28-29 (without parallels) and Lk 20:1-8 (compare Mk 11:27-33; Mt 21:23-27). 629 The quality of John’s baptism in Acts 1:5, 11:16, 18:25, 19:3-4. 630 ‘John’s Baptism’ as a time reference in Acts 1:22, 10:37, 13:24-25. 182 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 references to John’s baptism (Lk 3:1-20), Jesus’ unique baptism scene (Lk 3:21-22) and the Messiah’s baptism (Lk 3:16; Acts 2:38) throughout Luke- Acts. As an isolated modification, the short name ‘John’ could be an indifferent detail. This name is nevertheless part of multiple examples of literary changes in Luke. Luke’s narrative reorganizes the baptizer’s portrait and diminishes John as a baptizer. In light of this, Luke is a strong reader631 of Matthew, rather than a non-creative copyist of a hypothetical Q. Luke is no slave of his sources, but the master of his story.632

7.2.2. Jesus’ Specific Baptism Luke has in one sentence summarized that Jesus was baptized after ‘all the people (ἅπαντα τὸν λαὸν)’ (Lk 3:21) and the following scene subsequently focuses on Jesus: ‘and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”’ (Lk 3:22). In the 20th century three examinations of this pericope have advanced from a quest for the historical account through to Luke’s theological interpretation of the scene. Dibelius reads this scene as distinguished from the story about John’s baptism. In his reading of Lk 3:21-22, the central issue is not the baptism in itself: “Mit den Schlußversen (3.19-20) grenzt Lukas seine Täuferperikope noch schärfer gegen die folgende Erzählung ab, denn dieser folgende Abscnitt ist bei ihm keine Geschichte von der Taufe mehr.“633 Dibelius is aware that Luke’s account is influenced by the evangelist’s theological program. But as the father of form criticism Dibelius seeks to separate historical facts from the author’s theological tendencies. This leads him to consider Luke’s reference to how Jesus is baptized after the people as historically probable (3:21), and the following sentence as a theological development of how Jesus receives divine recognition (3:22). His analysis of the four evangelists’ different portraits of John leads him to conclude that these were not historical reports but passages designed for Christian preaching. He points out that Luke modifies upon some original form about Jesus’ baptism and creates a unique scene in which the focus is on the voice from

631 A ‘strong’ reader is a critical reader, who proposes a coherent and new interpretation of his sources. 632 This is how Evans characterizes “the Chronicler” who retells biblical history. Evans 1993, 180. 633 Dibelius 1911, 58. Dibelius distinguishes history from attestation of belief: ”der Evangelischen Überlieferung vom Täufer halten der geschichtlichen Prüfung nicht stand, weil sie aus bestimmter christlicher Tendenz heraus gestaltet zu sein scheinen.“ Ibid, 58. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 183 heaven, the Holy Spirit as a dove and Jesus’ prayer.634 This insight reveals that Dibelius focuses upon the redactional work of the evangelist rather than the quest for the historical Baptist. Bultmann takes a step further in the direction of understanding the development of the synoptic tradition. In The History of the Synoptic Tradition Bultmann defines the specific character of Jesus’ baptism scene in Luke as a faith legend that tells of Jesus’ consecration as the Messiah: “Without disputing the historicity of Jesus’ baptism by John, the story we have must be classified as legend. The miraculous moment is essential to it and its edifying purpose is clear.”635 Form criticism and demythologization are central to Bultmann’s hermeneutical agenda and discernible in his Theology of the New Testament.636 He argues that Jesus’ baptism scene is linked to the early Christian conception of Jesus as the exalted Messiah after his death and resurrection. He furthermore stipulates that Luke accentuates this thread:

For tradition as it stood, of Jesus being baptized by John, was naturally an inadequate basis. It seems to me that the reason is to be found on the one hand in the consecration of the Messiah being thought of as the work of the Spirit (cp. Acts 4:27; 10:38), and on the other hand in the conviction that Baptism bestows the Spirit (cp. 1 Cor 6:11; 12:13; 2 Cor 1:22; Acts 2:38 etc., p 247 n 1).637

Bultmann states that Luke-Acts interprets upon Jesus’ baptism. He is aware that Luke has a theological agenda in expanding upon this scene. Fitzmyer disagrees with Bultmann’s interpretation of the baptism scene as “Jesus’ consecration as messiah.”638 Instead, he argues that Acts interprets the baptism of Jesus as a messianic anointing: ‘How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power’ (Acts 10:38). Bultmann’s and Fitzmyer’s approaches both maintain that Lukan theology shapes how Jesus’ baptism scene is rewritten in Lk 3:21-22. Their analyses both point out that the evangelist develops the baptism scene at a double level and in

634 Dibelius 1911, 63. Dibelius inaugurates a study of how differently the gospels portray the Baptist (cf. 4.1.2). He argues that Mark is the first evangelist who combines a historical account on how Jesus approached John’s baptism with a legendary account on Jesus’ baptism with an epiphany (cf. 7.1.1). Dibelius argues that the story of Jesus’ baptism takes different forms according to each of the synoptic gospels and maintains that Luke and Matthew rewrite Mark independently: “Lukas hat anscheinend weniger als Matthäus am Markusbericht geändert, und doch geben diese Änderungen seiner Darstellung ein völlig anderes Gesicht.“ Ibid, 60. 635 Bultmann 1963, 250. 636 Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament [1948-1953], (London: CSM Press, 1958-1959). 637 Bultmann 1963, 250. 638 Fitzmyer 1981, 482. 184 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 two parts: Jesus’ baptism is only completed after his death,639 and the sense of it is first accomplished in Luke’s sequel on the establishment of the first Christian communities. Luke’s creativity in rewriting the baptism scene invites us to look at his use of previous accounts, before looking for lost sources. Dibelius’ and Bultmann’s insights have made it possible for Fitzmyer to study Luke in a redaction critical perspective with a focus upon Luke as a reception of Mark. Luke’s theological thread is visible through the modifications he has made upon his predecessors. I see a clear line of development from Dibelius to Fitzmyer in which the theological aspect of Luke’s interpretation is taken more and more into account despite their adherence to the 2SH. Their analyses invite us to further compare Luke with both Mark and Matthew. :49-50 rewrites the Markan presentation of “a specific baptism”, which is neither John’s and not yet the Messiah’s baptism promised to Jesus’ followers after the resurrection (Acts 1:5). Mark has:

But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized (βαπτισθῆναι) with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized (βαπτισθήσεσθε).640

Here Mark links Jesus’ baptism with the idea of a future accomplishment of the Messiah’s Baptism, which is presented as a future baptism, an event to come. Jesus’ baptism is first an exclusive one, which the disciples shall have access to in the future. By comparison, Matthew adapts the narrative context of this Markan section closely (Mt 20:20-23) but omits the two sentences referring to baptism. This section refers to Jesus’ dialogue with James and John, the sons of , and Matthew adds the presence of their mother. The brothers’ question in Mark is put on their mother’s lips in Matthew. Matthew seems to have rewritten the Markan account by adapting and omitting some of Mark’s material. Luke omits the entire section on Jesus’ dialogue with the two brothers. However, in the context of the Lukan Travel Narrative (Lk 9:51-18:48)641 Luke refers to a unique or specific baptism that only involves Jesus in a section that, according to Green, develops “the portrait of Jesus as one who, in order to fulfil God’s purpose, must suffer rejection and be killed.”642 In his preaching Jesus says: ‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I

639 Lk 12:49-50 640 Mk 10:38-39. 641 Green 1997, 394. 642 Green 1997, 396. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 185 have a baptism with which to be baptised, and what stress I am under until it is completed’ (Lk 12:49-50). This Lukan special material evokes Jesus’ response to the sons of Zebedee in the Markan version. It moreover relates to the sharp distinction made by Luke between John’s and the Messiah’s baptism in Lk 3:15-17. Contrary to Matthew’s account, Luke adds material on the specific sense of a baptism to come. This Lukan addition relativizes the baptism which Jesus receives in Lk 3:21-22, while the real consecration of Jesus as the Messiah is told as an event to come, and linked to a baptism (Lk 12:49-50, compare Mk 10:38-39). Luke here refers to a theme that links Jesus’ coming with fire and his baptism (Lk 3:15-17 and Mt 3:11- 12).643 Mark, on the contrary, presents a baptism and a communion that Jesus will share with his disciples as seen above. This is yet another example of how Luke responds to both Mark and Matthew in his treatment of the theme on baptism throughout the double work. Lk 12:49-50 discloses that Luke has a different interpretation of Jesus’ baptism than his predecessors. Luke moreover puts John’s comparison of two baptisms (Mk 1:8, Mt 3:11 and Lk 3:16) on Jesus’ and Peter’s lips in Acts (Acts 1:5 and 11:16). He thereby narratively illustrates the identity of the Messiah. The entire double work is told through the lens of a post-resurrection view of Jesus Christ and it is particular to Luke that he adds figures that anticipate and follow Jesus’ ministry.

7.2.3. Luke’s Distinct Baptism Agenda To argue that Luke modifies upon Jesus’ baptism episode calls for some comments on the narrative threads that disclose ideological changes in Luke’s account of the relationship between John and Jesus. Fitzmyer argues that Jesus’ baptism scene and the transfiguration scene (Lk 9:28-36) have many features in common. Both evoke a heavenly identification of Jesus. The first is addressed to Jesus: ‘You are my Son…’ (Lk 3:22), and the second has the character of a public manifestation: ‘Then from the cloud came a voice that said “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” (Lk 9:35).’ Both accounts precede important periods in Jesus’ ministry, as it is presented in Luke. Taken together, the two theophany accounts produce a narrative and theological coherence with Luke’s restructuration of Jesus’ ministry in two parts: the beginning of his ministry in Galilee (Lk 4:14-9:50) and the travel account of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem (Lk 9:51- 19:48).) Through these literary changes there appears a theological thread, namely Luke’s effort to expand upon Jesus’ ministry; and on this account

643 Green argues that Luke presents Jesus’ baptism, in part, as an episode of commissioning. Green 1997, 510. See ibid, 187. 186 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Luke seems to develop what he finds in both Mark and Matthew. Luke could therefore be later than both.644 Fitzmyer argues that Luke reacts to three problems in the Markan account: First, the subordination of Jesus to John. Second, that John is present at Jesus’ baptism, and third, that John baptizes with the Holy Spirit. Luke resolves these problems by making three narrative modifications: John’s imprisonment, John’s absence at Jesus’ baptism and Jesus’ prayer.645 Fitzmyer here follows Wink’s 1968-analysis of John the Baptist in Luke. Wink focuses on the same three changes in Lk 3:18-22 and reads: “John is imprisoned before Jesus is baptized; Jesus baptizes himself; and the Holy Spirit comes, not as result of John’s mediation, but because Jesus prayed.”646 However, Luke’s literary changes of the Markan account also apply to his relation to Matthew. Wink is right in arguing that Luke makes Jesus’ prayer overtake the role that John played in the scene. Jesus’ praying is, effectively, a theme developed in Luke. Luke emphasizes that Jesus prays at specific moments in the narrative. Only in the passion story in Gethsemane do Mark and Matthew share this theme with Luke (Lk 22:41, compare Mk 14:35; Mt 26:39). Luke adds several other instances in which Jesus prays: Jesus chooses the Twelve (6:12); Peter’s confession (9:18); the transfiguration (9:29) and the Lord’s Prayer (11:1). In these occurrences Luke has expanded upon both Mark and Matthew, and his thematic stress on prayer also influences his rewriting of Jesus’ baptism scene. Bock argues that the aorist participle of ‘after he was baptized (βαπτισθέντος)’ (Lk 3:21) and the present participle of ‘while he was praying (προσευχοµένου)’ (Lk 3:22) indicate a contrast which has consequences for the temporal order of Jesus’ baptism and prayer.647 He argues: “The sequence shows that the only ongoing event at the time of the heavenly voice was the prayer.”648 Hereby Luke unifies his narrative around his specific theme on John’s inferiority and inferior baptism. By inserting Jesus’ prayer as new material Luke turns Jesus’ baptism scene into a unique event. It is distinguished from John’s Baptism and it is not yet the

644 For the arguments in favour of a late dating of Luke-Acts see 3.1.2. and 4.1.2. note 300. 645 Fitzmyer 1981, 83. 646 Wink 1968, 83. Wink reads Luke’s changes as either polemic against a Baptist group contemporary to the evangelist or with regard to the actual situation in John’s day. He adheres to the 2SH and reads Luke’s account on the baptizer as rewritten Q: “And when Luke quotes the Q passage.” Ibid, 83. Consequently, he presupposes that Luke and Matthew are independent, and does not discuss if Luke has rewritten the Markan account on John. 647 Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1:1-9:50, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994), 336. 648 Bock 1994, 336. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 187

Messiah’s baptism, which is promised in Acts 1:5.649 To a certain point Fitzmyer’s analysis of how Luke changes the Markan account on Jesus’ baptism is convincing. I argue moreover that Luke 3:21-22 reads and adapts Mt 3:13-17, and not Q, and that Luke also had access to Mark through Matthew. As mentioned above, Lk 3:19-20 modifies the introduction of Jesus’ ministry by anticipating what is told in Mt 4:12. Luke reorganizes his narrative according to his intention expressed in the prologue650 (Lk 1:3) and separates the accounts of John’s and Jesus’ ministries. Luke reacts to Mark and to Matthew’s account on Jesus’ baptism and could be a reception and interpretation of both.

7.3. Three Distinguished Baptisms In Luke’s narrative setting, John proclaims three thematic sermons (Lk 3:7- 18) and is no longer the performer of a baptizing activity. Luke has moreover condensed the story of John’s adult life through his omission of John’s martyrdom, clothing and diet.651 These literary changes all indicate that Luke has intended to tell a different story than his predecessors. Behind this alternative story lies a specific narrative strategy on Luke’s part. Jesus is baptized without John being present because the latter was already imprisoned at that point in Luke’s narrative. Luke implicitly admits that Jesus is baptized with “John’s baptism,” but the evangelist narrates that Jesus’ baptism is unique and has a different quality than John’s baptism, and is not performed by John. The two changes linked to John’s disappearance and to Jesus’ apparition are moreover juxtaposed. Even without resorting to speculations as to Luke’s motives for these two thematic changes, his narrative discloses a rewriting strategy both with respect to the baptizer figure and to his baptism. Seemingly, Luke responds to two questions concerning the baptizer: who is John and what is John’s baptism? John’s absence at Jesus’ baptism is an informative expansion in Luke’s narrative. This information is in tune with the close literary context of John’s ministry (Lk 3:1-20) and with the broader literary context in Acts, in which Luke repeats a juxtaposition of two competing baptisms (Acts 1:5

649 See Chapter 7.3. 650 Luke promises to write his narrative to Theophilus in order (καθεξῆς σοι γράψαι) (Lk 1:3). 651 In Jesus’ speech to his disciples about the imprisoned John (Lk 7:24-35) John’s diet is evoked by Luke: ‘For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, he has a demon’ (Lk 7:33, compare Mt 11:18). Luke has this section in common with Matthew, and both insert the Malachi 3:1 citation, which is reserved material from Mk 1:2 related to the baptizer. Lk 1:15 evokes this same diet as reserved material told in the annunciation made to Zechariah about his future son. Luke most probably relies on Matthew as his source for these adaptions of the Markan material. 188 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 and 11:16). Behind this literary modification one recognizes Luke’s attempt to reduce John’s authority as a baptizer. This is an ideological change in Luke, which discloses his disagreement with Mark and Matthew on the subject of John’s prominence. In his commentary on Acts 10:37, Pervo argues: “The expression “following the baptism that John proclaimed” in v. 37 is compatible with Luke’s avoidance of such statements as “after John baptized Jesus he was anointed by the Holy Spirit.””652 He maintains that the literary changes in Lk 3:19-22 is reflected here in Acts and disclose “Luke’s aversion” of John as Jesus’ baptizer.653 Pervo’s analysis reveals that there is an ideological coherence between Luke and Acts on this point, and his analysis proves that Luke’s literary change to Jesus’ baptism should not be regarded as merely stylistic. I agree with him and consider that this thematic insight has consequences on our source critical discussion upon Luke’s use of either Q or Matthew for rewriting the scene. Luke’s prequel on John’s origins (Lk 1:5-25; 39-45; 57-80) inserts John in a specific historical and chronological context.654 This expansion demonstrates clearly the efforts by Luke to separate not only two baptisms (as in Mark and Matthew) but also the two figures. Luke introduces a particular interpretation of John through the very structure of his narrative and describes John’s teaching more extensively than do Mark and Matthew. This has consequences for the picture he provides of John’s baptism throughout the double work. Luke’s use of rhetoric as well as his ideological stance is distinctly visible through his expansions and rearrangements. By recognizing the literary relationships between the gospels, we moreover realize that the later evangelists were critical of their predecessors. I have argued that Luke has modified John’s identity (chapter 4 and 5), authority (chapter 6) and baptism (chapter 7) through his rewritten gospel. In this sense Luke is an additional layer in a succession of interpretations of the Baptist figure. The evangelist is not a neutral collector of sources to which he accords historical reliability in a modern sense. We know that a first century text like Josephus’ Antiquities contradicts the gospels’ attempts to clarify the relationship between John and Jesus. If Josephus’ account on Jesus is authentic, he introduces the two figures as

652 Pervo 2009, 279. 653 Pervo 2009, 279. 654 Tannehill argues that Luke’s introduction to John’s ministry (Lk 3:1-2) serves as a historical reference for a major new departure in the narrative and mimics the opening lines of many of the prophetic books in the Old Testament, such as , , Joel, , Zechariah and . Tannehill 1986, 47. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 189 equals, but provides no link between them.655 They are both described as messianic figures with a similar call of duty. If only his account on John the Baptist is authentic, then Josephus is the only first century source to mention John without mentioning Jesus.656 This case illustrates that Luke had a particular concern in narrating the right hierarchy between the figures. Compared to Josephus, Luke juxtaposes the stories of the two figures in order to demonstrate how one supersedes the other. John is the predecessor, who has come as a prophet (Lk 1:76), and his ministry as a figure who prepare people for conversion is anticipated in the birth narrative (Lk 1:17, 76-77). John and Jesus’ ministries are no longer interwoven, and the contrast between them is accentuated: John’s ministry becomes a static prequel to a new period in which Jesus’ action is disclosed in perpetual movement: even before Jesus’ birth does Mary travel to Elizabeth (Lk 1:39) and further to Bethlehem (Lk 2:5). She travels twice with her child to the temple in Jerusalem (Lk 2:22, 41). As an adult Jesus moves to the desert and hereafter travels to Galilee to begin his ministry. He enters into peoples’ lives, whereas John works in a desert place. John’s stay in the desert is immediately followed by a life in captivity. This new thread on the differences between the figures reveals Luke’s ideological changes. If Luke knew Josephus’ account on John in addition to those of Mark, Matthew (and probably also John) he performs damage control. Luke invites the concurrent figure, John, into his narrative in order to give him the place that fits the evangelist’s theological presentation of the Jesus figure. In Luke’s overall perspective it is more efficient to rewrite the figure than to entirely omit it. The reason why he writes more than his predecessors does not depend on access to historical information about the baptizer. Instead he has simply read his literary sources and modified them. He develops John’s role as a narrative link between the Scriptures and the New Testament Gospels’ Jesus tradition. However, in the new era of early Christianity Luke stresses that Jesus supersedes John. The quality of John, as it is accentuated in the Lukan work, is his capacity to proclaim an expected figure who shall baptize with the Holy

655 Per Bilde has convincingly argued that the Testimonium Flavianum about Jesus (all of Ant. 18:63-64) is a later addition to Josephus’ text. See Per Bilde, “Josefus’ beretning om Jesus” DTT 44 (1981) 99-135, 132-135; in English, Per Bilde “Testimonium Flavianum” in Eve-Marie Becker, M. Hørning Jensen and J. Mortensen (eds.) Collected Studies on Philo and Josephus, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016) 55-87, with an Epilogue from 2014 that confirms Bilde’s conclusion from 1981. 656 Per Bilde is convinced that Ant. 18.116-119 is authentic. He argues that Josephus has modified and Hellenized the eschatological and apocalyptical picture of John which is given in the gospels. Per Bilde, “Johannes Døber ifølge Josefus,” in Lone Fatum and M. Müller (eds.) Tro og historie, (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1996), 9-22. 190 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Spirit and fire (Lk 3:16-17). Matthews’ description of a future baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire (Mt 3:11) is adapted in Lk 3:16 and suggests the symbol mentioned in Acts 2:3’s ‘Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.’657 It is striking that Luke-Acts, like Mark and Matthew, never reports that Jesus actually baptizes.658 The synoptic gospels only describe John’s announcement of a future baptizer with the Holy Spirit. Luke’s sharp distinction between John and Jesus is maintained throughout his double work, and it is in accordance with the description of their two separated ministries in Lk 3 and 4, which responds to two separate birth narratives juxtaposed in Lk 1 and 2. On this point, Luke interprets the baptizer figure differently than Mark and Matthew. The insufficiency of John’s baptism is directly criticized at the time of the mission in Acts when Paul demands: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” (Acts 19:2). The response is negative and Paul further asks: “into what then were you baptized?” (19:3). The response is “Into John’s baptism.” In this pericope, Acts outlines a difference and a hierarchy between John’s “baptism of repentance” (19:4) and the one in the name of “the Lord Jesus” (19:5). But the term “John’s baptism” appears several times in Acts as an indication of the soil from which Jesus’ activity would emerge: ‘That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power’ (Acts 10:37-38). This Lukan feature found in Acts reflects how Luke modifies both Mark’s and Matthew’s description of Jesus’ baptism scene (Lk 3:21- 22). Acts explicitly has God baptizing Jesus, while Luke by the passive form (βαπτισθέντος in Lk 3:21) implicitly lets know that it is a divine action when Jesus is baptized.659

7.3.1. Luke’s Modifications of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:3) Did Luke consider the Markan description of John’s baptism to be problematic? Mark relates: “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mk 1:4). Mark further narrates that John baptized Jesus with the very same baptism (Mk 1:9). Hereby Mark indirectly puts the sentence “for the forgiveness of

657 Goulder 1989, 277. 658 Only the Gospel of John tells that Jesus actually baptizes “he is baptizing and all are going to him” Jn 3:26. “Die Geisttaufe mit ihrem unendlichen göttlichen Ausmass ist im 4. Evangelium zu einem Triumph über die Wassertaufe geworden!” Roland Schütz, Johannes der Täufer, (Zürich: Zwingli Verlag, 1967), 95. 659 There are examples in the Old Testament in which the passive form of a verb implicitly refers to divine action e.g. Gen 7:11 and 8:2. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 191 sins” on the lips of John the Baptist. One motive behind Luke’s different account could be his disagreement with a baptism to the forgiveness of sins administrated to Jesus in Mark. This hypothesis is elaborated by a comparison with later rewritings of the gospels. If we compare with extra- canonical references to Jesus’ baptism in later rewritings of the scene the Gospel according to the Hebrews emphasizes Jesus’ divine son-ship and that he came in fulfilment of prophecy. This apocryphal gospel moreover adds “The whole fountain of the Holy Spirit came upon him” (Gos. Heb. 2).660 By contrast, the Gospel according to the Nazarenes denies that Jesus had any need to be baptized with John’s baptism to forgiveness of sins: “What sin have I committed that I should go and be baptized by him? Unless perhaps something which I said in ignorance” (Gos. Naz. 2).661 It can be read as an indirect response and as a rewriting of Mk 1:4 and Mt 3:1-2. These later texts seem to deal with the same problem as Matthew and Luke. They disclose an effort to expand upon why Jesus should have accepted to be baptized by John. They seem to reflect different stages of interpretation of Jesus’ baptism, and hereby disclose a strategy of rewriting, which is hidden in and by the rewritten narrative. In this sense and compared to these later accounts Luke can be considered as a “writing reader.” These later extra-canonical texts are easily defined as later rewritings of the New Testament gospels. There should not be resistance to evaluate Luke as a text with a rewriting strategy. From his research on the historical John and Jesus, Ernst observes an evolution in the Baptist portrait in the Christology of each of the gospels. In his reading, Matthew has rewritten Mark’s description of John’s baptism. Ernst argues: “Das Moment des Sündennachlassung ist in der Täuferpredigt (Mk 1.4) getilgt und auf die Einsetzungsworte beim Abendmahl Jesu übertragen (Mt 26.28).”662 In a similar approach Meier aims to draw historical knowledge from the gospels in his quest for the historical Jesus. He questions the ‘historical’ baptism of John linked to the figure as it is described in the gospels.663 Meier argues that Matthew gives an expanded

660 The Gospel according to the Hebrews as quoted by (on Isa 11:2, Comm. Isa. 11:1-3). Jerome, Commentaires de Jerome sur le prophete Isaie I-IV, Roger Gryson (ed.) (Freiburg: Freiburg Verlag, 1993), 436-439. 661 The Gospel according to the Nazareans as quoted by Jerome in Pelag. 3.2. The Gospel according to the Ebionites tells that John baptizes Jesus and further asks to be baptized by Jesus, who refuses. The latter is quoted by Epiphanius in haer. 30.13.7-9. Epiphanius, Panarion haer. 1-33, Christoph Markschies (ed.) (Berlin; New York: W. de Gruyter, 2006), 151-464, 351. 662 Ernst 1997, 161. Wink makes this same point before Ernst. Wink 1968, 36. 663 Meier 1994, 116. It is an aim in biblical scholarship to distinguish Jesus in history, from Jesus in the gospels and in dogma history. In his quest on the historical Jesus J. P. 192 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 version of Mark and discloses “an embarrassment” with the phrase “for remission of sins” as a description of John’s baptism in Mark. He further argues that Matthew therefore transfers this motif to the blood of Christ symbolized by the wine at the .664 Matthew has in fact John pronounce a baptism of repentance and the evangelist stresses John’s preaching compared to Mark, whereas he omits the function of absolution stressed in Mark’s baptism formula. Matthew transposes “forgiveness of sins” (Mk 1:4) to a later narrative context: “for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26:28). What has been transposed from John’s ministry in Mark to Jesus’ promise of a new covenant in Matthew can be considered reserved material. As a supplement modification of John’s baptism as it is told in Mark, Matthew proposes a dialogue between John and Jesus, in which John asks “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?” (Mt 3:14). This Matthean addition to Mark is omitted by Luke.665 Matthew stresses the repenting character of John’s baptism and gives John’s message on repentance in oratio recta: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Mt 3:2). John further pronounces a baptism of repentance “I baptize you with water for repentance” (Mt 3:11). By contrast, Luke gives a longer oratio recta (Lk 3:7-17), and thereby adapts Mark’s descriptive phrase “preaching baptism of repentance for remission of sins” (Lk 3:3).666 The Lukan narrative hereby retains Mark’s description of John’s baptism, but in the following the evangelist removes John from Jesus’ baptism scene (Lk 3:19-20).667 This change is a new interpretation of John’s role. The Critical Edition of Q presumes that Matthew and Luke have got the theme on the quality of John’s baptism as a baptism of repentance from Q:8.668 Goodacre has pointed out that this theme is one of several elements

Meier makes a synthesis on John the Baptist. There is a risk to treat the sources in a harmonizing way, when one examines details from the four gospels in order to generate a historical picture of the figure. 664 Meier 1994, 53. 665 See chapter 6. 666 Here I follow Goulder’s analysis. Goulder 1989, 271. 667 This is an example of a narrative choice in biblical rewritings, which according to Alexander’s seventh point means that: “The narrative form of the texts means, in effect, that they can impose only a single interpretation on the original” in Alexander 1988, 117 (cf. 1.1.3). This means that a rewriting discloses the choice of one interpretation of a rewritten passage, while a commentary offers the possibility to present different interpretations on the same passage. The rewriting is bound by the story it tells, although it contains implicit commentaries by literary and ideological changes. 668 Robinson 2000, 8-10. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 193 presupposed but not narrated in the Q material. He argues: “Each one of these features is explained without difficulty on the Farrer theory, for they are all specifically narrated in the triple tradition outside of the Q material that presupposes it.”669 He proposes to dispend with the 2SH that John in Q 3:8 warns people to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” linked to his baptism, because there is no mention of people coming to his baptism in hypothetical Q. He further argues:

The strong connection here presupposed between John’s baptism and repentance is actually narrated in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Indeed, it seems to be a matter of special interest to Matthew, who frames John the Baptist’s speech on one side with the redactional addition Matt 3:2, in which John issues the same warning that Jesus is to issue in 4:17 (…) (“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”), and on the other side with 3:11, in which Matthew adds that John’s baptism was (…) (for repentance”). Could this be a sign that Matthew himself crafted the Baptist’s words, characteristically expanding his Markan source in line with his distinctive interests and using typical Matthean language?670

In Goodacre’s perspective the 2SH presumes an artificial narrative section in Q, which did not originally have a separate existence outside of Matthew’s gospel.671 Luke has further adapted Matthew’s rewriting of Mark by omitting and expanding material from his sources. Meier argues that it is striking that early Jesus followers would attribute such a power to John’s baptism as described by Mk 1:4, and he is right in stressing that the four gospels never apply the entire phrase to a baptismal custom that invokes the name of Jesus Christ.672 In fact we first find the reference to baptism in the name of Jesus in Acts. 673 It seems as if John’s baptism as described in Mk 1:4 and Mt 3:1-2 is re-casted in the presentation in Acts of how Peter pronounces a new baptism. The double work does not refer to a progression from John’s baptism in the Jordan River to the ritual, which became usual in the apostolic age. It does not explicitly describe if the baptism practice demands immersion in water. Peter’s presentation of a baptism in the name of Jesus Christ to forgiveness of sins through the reception of the Holy Spirit is not introduced in the double work before Acts 2:38: “Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized

669 Goodacre 2002, 182. 670 Goodacre 2002, 182-183. 671 Goodacre 2002, 182. 672 Meier 1994, 53. 673 The practice of early Christianity of immersion in water becomes a baptism with reference to the name of Jesus Christ, and we find the first reference to it in Acts 2:38. This rite is here said to symbolize salvation and forgiveness of sins through the name of Jesus Christ and through the reception of the Holy Spirit. 194 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Peter further orders to be baptized with the Messiah’s baptism in Acts 10:47-48. Luke-Acts hereby absorbs earlier narratives on John the Baptist and replaces a constitutive baptism with a temporary baptism to conversion.674 The words that describe John’s baptism in Matthew are transferred from the lips of John to Peter’s in Acts. Here Peter’s oratio recta presents the more powerful Messiah’s baptism replacing John’s inferior rite.675 John’s baptism consequently becomes more of a ‘time reference’ in Luke-Acts.676 Furthermore, Luke’s redactional activity is creative and not bound by sources as the commentaries following the 2SH presuppose. Scholars such as Ernst, Bovon and Fitzmyer notice Luke’s creative literary strategy but in relation to Mark and Q.677 They do not discuss the question of an eventual Lukan disagreement with Matthew on the mentioned occurrences. Matthew narrates about a future baptism in the end of his gospel. As we shall see in the following section it could be argued that Luke omits any evocation of a realized Christian baptism in his gospel and reserves the narrative of such a baptism to Acts.

7.3.2. A Succeeding Baptism with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5; 2:38) The Lukan double work provides a new frame to understand how the evangelist portrays John’s ministry. Acts refers to ‘John’ nine times.678 Acts either stresses the fact that John baptized: ‘for John baptized (ἐβάπτισεν) with water’ (Acts 1:5) or the quality of John’s baptism679 in comparison to a surpassing baptism in the Holy Spirit: ‘or he knew only the

674 C.G. Müller argues that the Lukan modifications on what is announced in Luke and told in Acts on John’s baptism accentuates a provisional value of John’s baptism: “Die Taufe des Johannes hat im Blick auf die im Lukasevangelium angekündigte und in der Apostelgeschichte erzählte neue Taufe vorläufige Bedeutung.” C.G. Müller 2001, 308. 675 For further investigation, the rhetoric on baptism in Paul’s letters should be compared to that of Luke. Luke’s rhetoric on baptism should also be read in light of Justin Martyr’s later description of John the Baptist in Justin Martyr, Dialogue avec Tryphon (trans. and comm. Philippe Bobichon), (Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2003), chapter 50 and 88. 676 Luke 1:26 refers to the six month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy as a time reference according to which the angel is sent to Mary. 677Ernst and Evans ascribe Lk 7-9; 16-17 to Q. Ernst 1977, 136 and Evans 1990, 231. Fitzmyer ascribe 3:7-18 to Q. Fitzmyer 1981, 466. Bovon argues that Luke’s account on John’s ministry mainly depend on Q. Bovon 191, 164. 678 The nine occurrences of the baptizer’s name as ‘John’ in Acts are listed in the E section 4.2. 679 Cf. Luke twice mentions ‘John’s baptism’ in Lk 7:28-29 (without parallels) and Lk 20:1-8 (compare Mk 11:27-33; Mt 21:23-27). Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 195 baptism of John (τὸ βάπτισµα ’Ιωάννου)’ (Acts 18:25).680 Acts refers to the time of John’s baptism as a past activity: ‘beginning from the baptism of John (τοῦ βαπτίσµατος ’Ιωάννου) until the day when he was taken up from us’ (Acts 1:22). The inferior baptism linked to John’s name hereby becomes a time reference.681 Luke-Acts is ambiguous on the question of whether or not John is a transitional figure.682 Acts 1:22 omits to refer to John as Jesus’ baptizer and hereby confirms how the evangelist has separated the two figures’ public ministries in Lk 3 and Lk 4. In Acts, Luke confirms that Jesus came after John in a temporal sense and refrains from applying Jesus’ discipleship to John. Luke interprets John’s ministry and baptism as anterior and inferior, and he accentuates John’s announcement of a coming figure and the realization of a future baptism. Luke disagrees with Mark and Matthew who both narrate that Jesus’ baptism by John inaugurates a new era. Acts 1:22 refers to John’s ministry, not to Jesus’ baptism as the beginning of a salvation period.683 But in Luke, contrary to Mark and Matthew, this ministry is preceded by two birth narratives and by a range of other preparing figures, such as John’s parents, Jesus’ parents, the and the shepherds (Lk 2:15) Simeon (Lk 2:25) and Anna (Lk 2:36). John’s ministry is preceded by Jesus’ birth narrative in Matthew, which diminishes John’s role as inaugurator. Luke expands upon this and furthermore relativizes John’s figure and importance by his adding of John’s birth narrative. John’s figure as a baptizer belongs in the past in Luke-Acts. The double work expands upon John’s proclamation of one who is to come and simultaneously relativizing it as one preparatory ministry among others.684 The nature of John’s baptism is described as even more insufficient in Luke’s theological agenda compared to Mark and Matthew.

680 The quality of John’s baptism in Acts 1:5, 11:16, 18:25, 19:3-4. 681 ‘John’s Baptism’ as a time reference in Acts 1:22, 10:37, 13:24-25. 682 Conzelmann reads Luke’s omission as a rejection of John’s role as forerunner. Conzelmann 1964, 172-73. Wink agrees with Conzelmann that Luke removes John from the stage before Jesus appears. “Luke separates John from Jesus” Wink 1968, 55. Wink reads Lk 3:1-20 as a separate section on John, and Lk 3:21-9:90 as the following section on the Galilean ministry. Ibid, 55. By contrast, Fitzmyer argues that John is a transitional figure. Fitzmyer 1981, 181-187. Webb argues that Luke understand John ‘to be part of the epoch of fulfillment, Webb 1991, 70. 683 Wink argues that Acts 1:22 refers to the baptizing ministry of John but neither to Jesus’ baptism nor to “Jesus baptism by John as the beginning of period of salvation.” Wink 1968, 54. 684 The preparatory ministries of Zechariah 1:67-79; Simeon Lk 2:25-35; Anna Lk 2:36- 38. Green 1997, 138-152, 163. 196 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Luke agrees with Mark and Matthew in contrasting John’s baptism by water with the baptizer’s own evocation of a future baptism ‘but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit’ (Mk 1:9; Mt 3:11 and Lk 3:16 add ‘and fire’). Acts repeats this contrast when Jesus says: ‘for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’ (Acts 1:5). Furthermore, Peter remembers these words when he defends repentance to the : ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 11:16). Acts further illustrates the existence of two competing baptisms and stresses that some people were baptized with a more efficient baptism. Acts narrates that the superior baptism has not yet fully replaced the former baptism.685 Apollos ‘taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John’ (Acts 18:25), and Acts even relates of disciples who were baptized in John’s Baptism and become baptized a second time in ‘the name of the Lord Jesus’ so they can receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:1-7). The interpretive implication of Luke’s separation of the two figures and their baptisms could be found in Acts 18:24-19:7, which describes a concurrent baptism activity in the time which Acts relates to. Luke-Acts expands upon the afterlife of disciples baptized into “John’s baptism”. Ernst Käsemann argues in his discussion of Acts’ description of disciples in Ephesus who receive a second baptism (Acts 19:1-7):

As his tradition made John into the herald of Jesus, so Luke has gone on to make John’s disciples into an odd species of Christian and thus he has radically eliminated any suggestion of real rivalry. Such a presentation can certainly only have been possible if Luke knew of the existence of a Baptist community by hearsay alone and was not obliged to attach to it any real significance because, for him at least, it belonged to a past already remote. Only in such circumstances as these could he dispense with concrete polemics and content himself with painting over the tradition.686

Käsemann argues that Luke has a strong theological agenda. However, it is regrettable that the point of departure once again is the historical John. Wink argues that the quotation from Acts indicates that “the church had been encountering Baptist groups and converting (or seeking to convert) them.”687 Furthermore, Wink stresses that “Luke felt free to transform these

685 For example, when Philip has proclaimed the good news about Jesus to the eunuch:”As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized? ” (Acts 8:36). Could this be an allusion to John’s baptism? 686 Käsemann 1968, 142-143. 687 Wink 1968, 86. Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 197 traditions to serve the more serious contemporary problem of church order.”688 Wink is aware of Lukan redaction, but adhering to 2SH he argues that Luke has expanded upon Mark and Q. Both Käsemann and Wink refer to the historical context of Acts and argue in a tendency critical perspective how Acts accentuates a distinction between the two figures. However, Luke’s dependency upon a lost source is not a logical consequence of this approach. Luke most likely has the theme of the right hierarchy between John and Jesus from Mark and Matthew, and not from “tradition” or from “Q.” I shall give some examples below of how Luke modifies upon Matthew’s rhetoric on baptism. The explicit mention of a post-resurrection baptism practice is announced by Matthew ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Mt 28:19). Luke has no such baptism declaration in his gospel. Instead, he rewrites Matthew’s great commission (Mt 28:19) and has the risen Jesus to encourage his disciples to proclaim that through the risen Messiah ‘repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem’ (Lk 24:47). Luke stresses the disciples ‘evangelizing’ role, while Matthew stresses their role as baptizers. This is coherent with how Luke has modified upon John’s ministry and stressed the importance of John’s preaching.689 The debate about absolution is resumed by Paul in Antioch in Pisidia: ‘before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all people of Israel’ (Acts 13:24). Paul explains that John’s preaching was reserved to a particular group of people. Furthermore he stresses that what John announced becomes universal in the name of Jesus: ‘And we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus’ (Acts 13:32-33), ‘through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you’ (Acts 13:38) and ‘by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins’ (Acts 13:39). Acts evokes a progress from a previous situation to a new era in which believing in Jesus becomes an absolution. In this perspective, John was simply one among others who proclaimed God’s promise. In Paul’s speech, the names of John and Jesus are evoked and linked to specific functions. John is the proclaimer. Jesus is the risen and saving figure. In this sense Luke reserves the Christological function to Jesus. Paul proclaims that the pardon is given to more than the people of Israel when it is linked to Jesus’s name. Acts moreover stresses that the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit after having listened to Paul’s speech (Acts 13:52). Luke deliberately

688 Wink 1968, 86. 689 See 6.2.2. 198 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 omits the Holy Spirit from John’s ministry (Lk 3:1-20). From Luke’s perspective, the Holy Spirit acts at Jesus’ baptism without John (Lk 3:21- 22), and it is first given to Jesus’ apostles in a post-resurrection context: ‘for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’ (Acts 1:5, compare Mt 28:19 RM). By contrast, Mark and Matthew both tell that Jesus has come to be baptized by John in the Jordan with ‘the Spirit’ (Mk 1:10) and with ‘the Spirit of God’ (Mt 3:13-16). They both portray a baptizer who performs his baptism during which Jesus receives the Spirit. It could be argued that Luke follows their description of Jesus’ baptism as a Christological moment, where the baptism is administrated with the Holy Spirit. We have seen that the Lukan modification in telling Jesus’ baptism without John (Lk 3:21-22) uncovers a theme: The quality of John’s baptism. Luke has narratively created a distinction between the Baptist as a figure and John’s baptism throughout the double work. John’s baptism shall be seen in light of the Messiah’s baptism which is promised in Lk 3:16 and Acts 1:5.690 Not before Acts 2:38 does Peter present this new and superior baptism to the apostles, and it is finally accomplished: ‘So those who welcomed his message were baptized’ (Acts 2:41). As argued above, Luke tells that Jesus is baptized with the Holy Spirit and not by John. Mark has no account of Jesus’ sending out the disciples for baptizing, contrary to Matthew’s account on the Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20).691 Luke has split up Matthew’s account and reserves the proclaiming ministry to John (Lk 3:1-20) and tells how Jesus sent out his apostles to proclaim forgiveness of sins in his name (Lk 24:46-53). Compared to Matthew, Luke reserves for Acts the promise and realization of a baptism in the name of Jesus Christ with the gift of the Spirit. The description of Jesus’ baptism without John in Luke-Acts must be considered an attempt on part of the evangelist to disqualify John’s baptism in Acts, whereas John’s baptism is the only possible baptism at the time which the gospel relates to. John’s baptism is replaced by a promised new baptism. The interpretive implications of John’s modified baptism are related to a different Baptist figure and a different authority compared to Jesus in Luke-Acts’ perspective. The evocation of John’s baptism in Lk 7:29-30 and in Lk 20:1-8 are examples of this. Like Mark and Matthew, Luke discusses the quality of John’s baptism in Lk 20:1-8 (compare Mk 11:27-33; Mt 21:23-27). Luke is alone in making a narrative expansion to the function of John’s baptism, when the narrator tells that the Pharisees

690 The Messiah’s baptism may be distinguished from the baptism which Jesus makes allusions to in Lk 12:49-50: ‘I have a baptism with which to be baptized…’ 691 Compare the longer ending of Mark (Mk 16:15-16). Chapter 7: The Quality of John’s Baptism (Lk 3:16) 199 and the lawyers refuse John’s baptism (Lk 7:29-30). By inserting this remark Luke has added a notion of a provisory baptism in John’s name into his gospel narrative. Already at the time of Jesus’ ministry adherence to John’s baptism was probably related to distinguished groups. In the narrative perspective of Luke-Acts, the inferior quality and the past character of John’s baptism are both accentuated. This makes Robert C. Tannehill argue that (what I define as) the Messiah’s baptism is unfulfilled in Luke:

John’s prophecy of the coming of the stronger one finds immediate fulfillment as Jesus appears in 3.21-22. These verses also report the descent of the Holy Spirit, but on Jesus alone. John’s promise that “he will baptize you in Holy Spirit” remains unfulfilled during Luke’s Gospel.692

In his commentary Pervo agrees with Tannehill on Acts 2:38: “it fulfills the promise of John about a coming baptism with the Spirit.”693 Both Tannehill and Pervo are aware that Luke reserves material to Acts. Instead of closing the gospel narrative by the Messiah’s baptism (as Mt 28:19), this superior baptism becomes part of the Lukan story about how the early Christian community takes form (Acts 2:38). Luke’s reorganization of reserved material discloses a later date of redaction than Mark and Matthew. Luke’s John proclaims God’s word (Lk 3:2) and encourages conversion and even the ethical consequences of conversion (Lk 3:10-14). However, the question remains as to which text was the first to link John’s public ministry to that of Jesus. Neither Paul’s letters nor Josephus’ Antiquities link the two figures. Luke cannot omit the link between John and Jesus, which is established in the other synoptic gospels. Yet, he rewrites the connection between these figures in order to limit the interpretation of their mutual relationship. He rejects any direct dependency between them, and moreover outlines how the later Messiah’s baptism supersedes that of John. He rewrites John’s ministry in order to avoid any confusion of the figures: John is not the anointed one (Lk 3:15), he does not even meet Jesus, and the Holy Spirit takes over the action in Jesus’ baptism scene without John (Lk 3:22; Acts 10:38). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is reserved to a later baptism (Acts 2:37). Luke recounts that both John and his father were filled with the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:15 and 1:67), as were later Paul, Barnabas and their disciples (Acts 13:2, 9, 52). So the Baptist figure has received the Spirit but did not administrate it through his baptism. Luke restructures the description of John’s ministry and of Jesus’ baptism scene by excluding

692 Tannehill 1986, 51. 693 Pervo 2009, 84. 200 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

John’s action from the action of the Holy Spirit. It is part of Luke’s program: “demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 18:28). Although Acts here refers to an OT promise of a coming and saving figure, the double work aims to depict Jesus as Christ and John as the precursor through narrative reorganization.

7.4. Concluding remarks The transition from John’s ministry to that of Jesus is told differently by the three synoptic gospels. The analysis of Luke’s redactional changes in 3:18- 20 and 21-22 can be better explained as modifications upon Mark and Matthew’s account on Jesus’ baptism (Mk 1:9-11 and Mt 3:13-17), than as a rewriting of Mark and a lost source. On the basis of this comparison it appears that Luke has inserted John’s imprisonment within a new literary context and isolated Jesus’ baptism from John’s ministry. This literary change illustrates how Luke avoids referring to John as Jesus’ baptizer as is also the case in Acts. Furthermore, Luke seems to emphasize that Jesus’ public ministry first begins after that of John has concluded. Luke disagrees with John the Baptist’s speech in Mt 3:2 and modifies upon it. Luke’s modifications on the quality of John’s baptism are better explained as literary changes of Matthew 3:11 on “the one to come” than of hypothetical Q 3:16-17. These changes reveal how the Lukan double work distinguishes between three different baptisms: John’ baptism belongs in the past and Jesus baptism is described as a unique baptism. The Messiah’s baptism is promised in Luke but first realized in Acts. I have thereby demonstrated how Luke’s modifications disclose a creative attitude towards Matthew and his rewriting of Mark. The hypothetical Q neither mentions John’s imprisonment nor the link between John’s baptism and repentance. Instead of resorting to a hypothetical (now lost) source, I posit that Luke has anticipated the end of John’s ministry by modifying the depictions of the baptizer in both Mark and Matthew. I have showed that Luke’s rewriting of John the Baptist is done through the perspective of his understanding of the figure of Jesus and the mutual relationship between the Baptist and the Messiah.

Conclusion

This dissertation demonstrates that Luke’s portrait of John the Baptist reveals a literary relationship between Matthew and Luke. I have studied various examples of narrative expansions, omissions and adaptions in Luke 3:1-20 compared to Matthew 3:1-17. My aim has been to illustrate if these modifications are comparable to those that characterize biblical rewritings, as described by Geza Vermes and Philip Alexander. To Philip Alexander, the three characteristics of a biblical rewriting apply to its content, to a literary relationship and to an interpretive tradition. The content of Matthew and Luke can be compared without appeal to a lost source, and through this comparison the question of their literary relationship and their respective interpretive tradition can be examined. The similitudes and the differences between Matthew and Luke also allows me to study them in light of a more universal phenomenon of rewriting in literature theorized by Gérard Genette as hypertextuality. In this dissertation, I conduct a comprehensive analysis of the depiction of John the Baptist in Luke. Throughout my study, I demonstrate that the four gospels deal differently with the relationship between Jesus ‘the anointed one’ and John ‘the baptizer.’ Each gospel in its own way tends to adapt the figure of John the Baptist in relation to the coming figure he announces. The four gospels portray the baptizer differently, just as they describe his baptism differently. I argue that these observations indicate some kind of rewriting. My methodology thereby differs greatly from those traditionally used by proponents of historical-critical analyses of the gospels and their mutual relationships. Chapter 1 thus outlines two central concepts that form the basis of much of my analysis, i. e. the narrow phenomenon of biblical rewritings in antique literature and the concept of hypertextuality. In chapter 2, I have introduced two common explanations for the interrelationship between Matthew and Luke. Defenders of the Two Source Hypotheses (2SH) characterize the relationship between these gospels as indirect and refer to a common lost source, denominated Q, and both gospels’ independent rewriting of Mark. To defenders of the L/M hypothesis (i.e. that Luke rewrote Matthew) the relationship is explained as Luke’s direct literary dependence upon both Mark and Matthew. I have argued that it is a problem for New Testament studies if the debate on the relationship between Matthew and Luke’s common material is settled with the 2SH. A comprehensive study of John’s ministry in the larger literary context of Luke-Acts reveals that Luke’s portrait of the baptizer can be considered the result of an interpretive process, through which Luke as a hypertext 202 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20 rewrites at least two hypotexts, Mark and Matthew. The late attestation of Luke supports the possibility that Luke also knew the Gospel of John. An important implication of this is that Luke is both the reception and a reworking of sources we actually have access to. As I demonstrate in chapter 5 to 7, proponents of the 2SH do not sufficiently account for the thematic changes in Luke’s recasting of the baptizer, when they presuppose that Luke is bound by his sources, Mark and Q. I have demonstrated that the passage on John’s ministry in Luke 3:1-20 can be read as received material from a known source - Matthew - and not as shared material. A closer study on Luke’s characterization of John the Baptist therefore challenges the traditional view of the 2SH and its explanation of the relationship between Matthew and Luke. The second part of this dissertation is structured according to literary changes (how?) and ideological changes (why?) in Luke’s description of John’s public ministry. Firstly, I have asked how the figure is described through Luke’s literary changes/modifications compared to Matthew. Luke-Acts adds information on John’s identity and function compared to Mark and Matthew’s accounts. Mark most probably is the first to transform an independent prophet - as Josephus portrays John - into a forerunner of ‘the anointed one.’ Luke-Acts modifies the Baptist figure and the relation he has to others through narrative expansions, additions and omissions. Luke’s portrait of John is undoubtedly influenced by his understanding of the relationship between the Baptist and Jesus. Chapter 4, for instance, examines how Luke expands on John’s birth and makes narrative development on the afterlife and reputation of John’s baptism in Acts. Compared to Matthew’s account on John’s ministry (Mt 3:1-17), Luke adds an annunciation and birth narrative linking the Baptist figure to Old Testament figures. Chapter 5 examines Luke’s modifications on John’s name. Chapter 6 examines how Luke modifies John’s relation to Jesus, while omitting their meeting told only by Matthew (Mt 3:13-14). The crowd’s expectations directed towards John are also clarified in Luke’s presentation of John’s public ministry. Luke adds John’s explanation of ethical demands (Lk 3:10-14), and also the information that people accepted John’s baptism, while the Pharisees and Scribes did not (Lk 7:29- 30). Chapter 7 examines how John’s imprisonment and Jesus’ baptism is told differently by Luke. Luke also omits the predecessor’s legendary description of John’s death. Furthermore, there is no mention of John’s specific diet and clothing. Finally, Acts adds material on John’s baptism in different contexts and always as an inferior baptism compared to the Messiah baptism. If the baptizer is a plastic figure in early gospel writing, he has been remodeled in Luke compared to Mark and Matthew. Luke Conclusion 203 removes John from Jesus’ baptism scene, and Acts strikingly ignores the issue of whether or not John baptized Jesus. Acts maintains a clear distinction between two baptisms: A temporal baptism in John’s name (with water) and the full realisation of a threefold baptism in the name of Christ, to the forgiveness of sins, and with the gift of the Holy Spirit which is first introduced in Acts 2:38. This superior baptism is not yet realizable in the gospel. It is only after the narrative on resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples in Jerusalem that Luke in Acts will tell of people baptized with a superseding baptism. Secondly, the question is why there is an evolution in the various descriptions of John’s baptism. The literary changes disclose Luke’s ideological concerns and theological agenda. Reading Luke’s rendering of John’s baptism as a rewriting of Mark and Matthew is a test case to assess Luke’s attitude towards sources, although the identification of these is open to discussion. Luke shares identically reproduced material with at least these two sources. In response to this, this dissertation demonstrates that Luke’s description of John’s ministry and baptism can be studied as a reception of both Mark and Matthew, without appeal to lost sources. From my analysis of Luke’s literary changes in Lk 3:1-20 (in chapter 5 to 7) I argue that Luke reframes John’s ministry and provokes a chronological anticipation of John’s activity before Jesus’ entry on the scene as an adult. This is in line with how Luke narratively reframes the priority of John’s birth to that of Jesus. His rewriting of John the Baptist is conceived of in relation to the Lukan Jesus figure. All of these literary and ideological modifications convey Luke’s liberty in rewriting sources. The Lukan Baptist portrait discloses that the chronological and geographical structures in Luke-Acts are inherently thematic and theological, and not historical in a modern sense. The results of my analysis disclose that John the Baptist is a plastic figure remodeled by the storyteller Luke. Compared to Matthew, Luke has a different theological agenda on this figure and on the origins of a baptism rite. Whereas John’s baptism can be interpreted as a constitutive baptism in Luke’s predecessors, it becomes a first step to conversion in the Lukan narrative, in which it is distinguished from Jesus’ baptism. Acts describes John’s baptism as an insufficient baptism (Acts 1:5). It has only preceded Jesus’ baptism (Lk 3:21-22) and the Messiah baptism (in Acts 1:5, 8). The latter is described as something to which the disciples can only accede after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension (Lk 24:51). Luke thus offers a careful and profound interpretation of John the Baptist, his baptism and how to situate it in early Christianity. With the accounts on the baptizer in Mark, 204 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Matthew, John and Josephus’ Antiquities, Luke’s account is a further step in a history of interpretation. This dissertation examines how most commentaries silently accept the presuppositions of the 2SH. They blur the eventual literary relationship between Matthew and Luke by presupposing both their independency in rewriting Mark and a rather literal rewriting of a lost source. The aim of Part II has been to compare Matthew and Luke’s accounts on John’s ministry and to analyse Luke’s retelling of John’s baptism in order to test if Luke is an interpretive reworking of predecessors. John the Baptist is described differently in the New Testament gospels and later apocryphal rewritings. These divergent accounts seem to reflect an embarrassment on part of the authors with John’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and each narrative taken separately deals with this question in different ways. The evolution in treatment of the figure indicates a process of transmission that reflects different stages of interpretation. The interpretation of the figure is hidden in and by the biblical rewriting. I argue that Mark and Matthew have first transmitted accounts on John’s ministry and baptism, which later have been received and rewritten by Luke in his double work. Luke’s amplification of the figure of John discloses that under new circumstances the identity of the baptizer is modified and reshaped to fit new challenges. Luke-Acts depicts John the Baptist as a past figure and accentuates the inferiority of his baptism compared to a more powerful baptism. Luke-Acts is a hypertext and more specifically a biblical rewriting in the sense that it overwrites earlier sources without citing them. Luke 3:1-20 is a creative text in the way it rewrites material from hypotexts for new purposes. On the basis of my analysis, I argue that Luke’s portrait of the figure of the Baptist can best be construed as a highly creative modification and reshaping on Luke’s part of the depictions of the Baptist figures in the other synoptic gospels, and primarily that in Matthew. As such, this dissertation provides an alternative picture of the relationship between Matthew and Luke as one in which the latter can indeed be designated ‘a writing reader’ of the former.

Summary

This dissertation, John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew?, addresses two issues in New Testament exegesis. Firstly, does the strategy of rewritten Scripture influence the way the gospels were written: can Luke be assessed as a biblical rewriting? Secondly, does a demonstrable literary dependence of Luke on Matthew offer a different solution to the synoptic problem? These issues are handled through an investigation of the portrait of John the Baptist in Luke-Acts and through an exegetical analysis of John’s ministry in Lk 3:1-20 compared to Mk 1:1-11 and Mt 3:1-17. I seek to test the direct literary relationship between Matthew and Luke according to the L/M hypothesis: that Luke rewrote Mark consistently and moreover used Matthew as a written source. This dissertation consists of two parts, the first of which traces the possibilities of reading the gospels in light of biblical rewritings from the period of Second Temple Judaism. Chapter 1 examines the term rewritten Bible and how this phenomenon has influenced biblical interpretation the past fifty years. In this chapter, the literary characteristics of a biblical rewriting are listed in order to facilitate an analysis of Luke as a rewriting of Matthew. Furthermore, the question on the interrelationship between the gospels relates to the question of common material and literal dependence of some sort. Chapter 2 therefore compares the positions of two models concerned with these questions, the Two Source Hypothesis (2SH) and the L/M hypothesis. On the one hand, proponents of the 2SH focus on sources and redaction: the material which Matthew and Luke have in common against Mark is taken as a remnant of a lost source. They presuppose the independence of Matthew and Luke and that their redaction is contemporary, not separated in time. On the other hand, proponents of the L/M hypothesis stress an investigation of the literary relationship between Matthew and Luke without resorting to speculations on lost sources. They recognize Luke’s creativity and dispense with lost sources as an explanation of what Matthew and Luke have in common. Chapter 3 examines how to evaluate the direction of literary dependence between Matthew and Luke. The 2SH is the commonly accepted solution to the synoptic problem. Yet, it does not provide sufficient evidence for the presupposed independence of Matthew and Luke. I argue that a focus on Luke’s composition and interpretive activity discloses new insight on Luke’s relationship to Matthew. I present a model for categorization of changes in a biblical rewriting, which I then apply to Luke’s portrait of John. These changes are comprised of new, omitted, adapted and reserved material. My main argument in part I then is that the identification of 206 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Luke’s sources and the direction of dependence between the gospels remain open for discussion. Part II investigates Luke’s characterization of John the Baptist with a focus on his ministry in Lk 3:1-20. Chapter 4 offers a brief overview of the Baptist figure in Luke-Acts and analyses John as a figure re-casted in the gospel narrative. Special attention is given to three examples of literary changes to John’s ministry. These changes relate to John’s identity, to his authority and to the quality of his baptism. A key concern in the second part is the exploration of the interpretive implications of the modifications found in Luke. I find that such changes found here disclose a high degree of creativity and a particular rewriting strategy on Luke’s part. I examine how recent commentaries on Luke explain those changes and Luke’s attitude to written sources. Most of these adhere to the 2SH and explain Luke as a rewriting of Mark and the hypothetical Q. According to these commentaries, Luke adapted Q in various ways throughout his gospel; the result being that Q becomes a plastic source adapted differently from one commentary to another. Their acceptance of Q excludes any possibility to assess Luke’s relationship to Matthew and the former’s possible use of the latter. I argue that an analysis of Luke’s literary changes compared to Matthew is prior to speculation on Luke’s use of lost sources. Chapter 5 analyses Luke’s modifications to the baptizer’s name. Luke tells of John son of Zechariah in Lk 3:2 while Matthew’s narrator introduces John the Baptist in Mt 3:1. In line with recent scholarship, I study Luke’s baptizer as disclosing part of Luke’s theological agenda. An analysis of Lukan additions on John’s activity as a preacher discloses that his role as a baptizer is diminished. Special attention is given to the fact that the figure is never called “the Baptist” in the narrator’s perspective, and that Acts mainly refers to John’s function as a past figure and to the inferior baptism in his name. Furthermore, by adding a birth narrative in Lk 1 and 2 and by modifying John’s name, Luke narratively reshapes what Mark and Matthew depict as a competing figure to Jesus. Chapter 6 demonstrates how Jesus and John are separated in Luke’s account of John’s ministry. Throughout this chapter, I examine the impact of this imposed distance between the figures on John’s authority. Moreover, in the rewriting perspective, Luke has omitted the Matthean account of John and Jesus’ meeting (Mt 3:13-14). Luke has changed the actors of this meeting for narrative purposes, and anticipated the account of it to a new narrative context as part of the double birth narrative (Lk 1:43). I stress John’s threefold preaching (Lk 3:7-17), and argue that Luke accentuates John’s preaching activity. Luke moreover introduces shattered Messiah expectations towards John in an earlier narrative context compared Summary 207 to Mark and Matthew (Lk 3:15). All of Luke’s modifications stress Jesus’ superiority to John. Chapter 7 examines the anticipation of John’s imprisonment in Lk 3:18- 20 in light of Jesus’ baptism scene without John in Lk 3:21-22. Some commentaries harmonize their readings of the baptism scene with that of Mark and Matthew and explain Luke’s changes as a bare stylistic solution. By contrast, I choose to follow those commentaries that argue that Luke’s modifications are theologically significant. In the conclusion, I state that the distinctive portrait of John the Baptist in Luke-Acts has several examples of literary changes similar to those that characterize biblical rewritings, such as omissions, additions and adapted material. A closer glance at Luke’s reception of Mark’s and Matthew’s Baptist portraits reveals literary modifications, which all have interpretive implications. I argue that what Luke has in common with Matthew on John’s public ministry (in Lk 3:1-20) can be read as material which Luke has received, and not as shared material. This dissertation answers positively that there is a coherent theological thread in Luke-Acts on the relationship between John and Jesus and on the avoidance of treating John as Jesus’ baptizer. By consequence, the Lukan portrait of John the Baptist discloses a creative literary activity and a rewriting strategy. Finally, the conclusion argues that Luke by changing the baptizer’s name and ministry reflects a need to reassure readers that John is secondary to Jesus.

Dansk sammenfatning

Afhandlingen, John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20: Is Luke a Writing Reader of Matthew?, behandler to grundlæggende spørgsmål inden for nytestamentlig eksegese. For det første, er den litterære strategi, der kendetegner ”rewritten Scripture,” relevant for studiet af evangeliernes affattelsesproces: Kan Lukasevangeliet (herefter Luk.) læses som en bibelsk genskrivning? For det andet, kan en påvisning af Luk.’s litterære afhængighed af Matthæusevangeliet give os en ny løsning på det synoptiske problem? Og i så fald hvilken? Disse spørgsmål behandles gennem en undersøgelse af portrættet af Johannes Døber i Lukas-Acta og gennem en eksegetisk analyse af Johannes’ offentlige virke i Luk 3,1-20 sammenlignet med Mark 1,1-11 og Matt 3,1-17. I min analyse undersøger jeg det litterære forhold mellem Matt. og Luk. i forlængelse af L/M-hypotesen: at forfatteren bag Luk. udover at have genskrevet Mark. også har brugt Matt. som en litterær kilde. Afhandlingen består af to dele. Den første del undersøger forbindelsesleddene mellem evangelierne og de jødiske skrifter fra Det Andet Tempels tid, der kan klassificeres som ”bibelske genskrivninger.” Kapitel 1 præsenterer betegnelsen ”rewritten Bible,” og undersøger hvordan betegnelsen har påvirket bibelfortolkningen i de forgangne 50 år. I dette kapitel fremhæves de typiske litterære kendetegn ved de bibelske genskrivninger, som i de efterfølgende kapitler afprøves i analysen af Lukasevangeliet som genskrevet Matthæusevangelium. Spørgsmålet om evangeliernes indbyrdes forhold berører både spørgsmålet om det materiale, de har tilfælles, og om graden af litterær (u)afhængighed de enkelte evangelier imellem. I forlængelse heraf sammenligner og modstiller kapitel 2 to forskellige svar på det synoptiske problem, to-kilde-hypotesen og L/M-hypotesen. Tilhængere af to-kilde- hypotesen fokuserer på kilder og redaktion. De tager udgangspunkt i det stof, som kun er fælles for Matt. og Luk., og vurderer at det vidner om en forsvundet kilde (kaldet ’Q’ for Quelle). De forudsætter desuden, at de to evangelier er nogenlunde samtidige, og antager derfor, at disse evangelier er indbyrdes uafhængige. L/M-hypotesen antager derimod, at Luk. er litterært afhængigt af Matt. Tilhængere af denne hypotese hævder derfor, at denne tilgang skal prioriteres over spekulationer over forsvundne kilder. Tilhængere forudsætter desuden, at forfatteren til Luk. var kreativ i sin genskrivning af kilder, og de afprøver en model af forholdet mellem Matt. og Luk. uden inddragelse af tabte kilder. 210 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

Kapitel 3 undersøger, hvordan man kan evaluere i hvilken retning den litterære afhængighed Matt. og Luk. imellem går. To-kilde-hypotesens forklaring på forholdet mellem de synoptiske evangelier er bredt anerkendt, men den formår ikke at udelukke et litterært forhold mellem Matt. og Luk. Jeg argumenterer for, at fokus på Lukasevangeliets samtidige fortolkende og genskrivende strategi kan afdække ny indsigt i Luk.’s forhold til Matt. Jeg præsenterer desuden en model over litterære ændringer i en bibelsk genskrivning, som jeg efterfølgende afprøver på portrættet af Johannes i Luk. Disse ændringer består af nyt tilføjet stof, udeladt stof, tilpasset stof og stof, som er flyttet til en ny litterær kontekst. Mit hovedargument i del I er derfor, at spørgsmålet om, hvilke kilder Luk. brugte og om retningen for den litterære afhængighed mellem evangelierne, stadig er til diskussion. Del II undersøger skildringen af Johannes Døber i Luk. med fokus på hans offentlige virke i Luk 3,1-20. Kapitel 4 giver et overblik over, hvordan døberfiguren er fremstillet i Lukas-Acta, og analyserer hvordan figuren er omarbejdet i evangeliefortællingen. Der er lagt særlig vægt på tre ændringer i beskrivelsen af Johannes’ offentlige virke, nemlig hans identitet, hans autoritet og kvaliteten af hans dåb. Et hovedanliggende i denne del af afhandlingen er at undersøge, hvilke fortolkningsmæssige konsekvenser de litterære ændringer i Luk. medfører. Det er min opfattelse, at disse ændringer afslører evangelistens kreativitet og en særlig genskrivningsstrategi. Jeg undersøger desuden, hvordan aktuelle Lukaskommentarer udlægger evangelistens ændringer og brug af skriftlige/litterære kilder. De fleste af disse kommentarer læner sig op ad to-kilde-hypotesen, og de betragter Luk. som en genskrivning af Mark. og af den hypotetiske Q-kilde. Kommentarerne finder, at Luk. på forskellig vis har tilpasset Q-kilden til sin fortælling; med det resultat at Q fremstår som en yderst smidig kilde, som kan tage forskellige former fra den ene kommentar til en anden. Kommentarernes tilslutning til Q udelukker enhver undersøgelse af det indbyrdes forhold Luk. og Matt. imellem og af førstnævntes eventuelle brug af sidstnævnte. Jeg anfører derfor, at en analyse af de litterære ændringer, der måtte forekomme i Luk. set i forhold til Matt. skal prioriteres over evangelistens eventuelle brug af hypotetiske kilder. Kapitel 5 analyserer, hvordan Luk. ændrer på døberens navn. Luk. fortæller om Zakarias søn i Luk 3,2, hvorimod Matt. introducerer læseren for Johannes Døber i Matt 3,1. I forlængelse af aktuel forskning, studerer jeg døberfiguren i Luk. som en del af Luk.’s teologiske plan og narrative agenda. En analyse af de måder, hvorpå Luk. narrativt udvider Johannes’ prædikantaktivitet, afslører at dennes døberrolle er nedtonet. Det fremhæves, at Luk.s fortæller aldrig præsenterer figuren med navnet Dansk sammenfatning 211

Johannes Døber, og at Acta hovedsageligt refererer til Johannes’ funktion som en tidligere figur, samt til en underlegen dåb i hans navn. Ved at tilføje Johannes’ undfangelses- og fødselshistorie og ændre hans navn omformer Luk. desuden den figur, som Mark. og Matt. har fremstillet som en konkurrent til Jesus. Kapitel 6 viser, hvordan Jesus og Johannes er adskilte figurer i Luk.’s udlægning af sidstnævntes offentlige virke. Jeg undersøger, hvilken konsekvens denne pålagte distance har for fremstillingen af Johannes’ autoritet. Ud fra et genskrivningsperspektiv har Luk. desuden udeladt Matt.’s beskrivelse af, hvordan Johannes og Jesus møder hinanden inden Jesus’ dåb (Matt 3,13-14). Luk. har ændret dette mødes aktører ud fra et nyt fortælleperspektiv og foregrebet beskrivelsen af mødet og indsat den i en ny narrativ kontekst som en del af den dobbelte fødselsberetning (Luk 1,43) Jeg prioriterer en analyse af Johannes’ tredelte prædikantaktivitet (Luk 3,7-17) og argumenterer for, at Luk. accentuerer Johannes’ rolle som prædikant. Luk. introducerer desuden (ikke-indfriede) Messiasforventninger rettet mod Johannes i en tidligere narrativ kontekst sammenlignet med Mark. og Matt. (Luk 3,15). Alle Luk.’s litterære ændringer betoner, at Jesus er Johannes overlegen. I Kapitel 7 undersøger jeg, hvordan Johannes’ fængsling foregribes i Luk. 3,18-20 set i lyset af, hvordan Jesus døbes uden Johannes’ tilstedeværelse i Luk 3,21-22. Visse kommentarer harmoniserer deres udlægning af dåbsscenen med versionerne i de øvrige synoptiske evangelier. De forklarer Luk.’s alternative udlægning som en version, der er påvirket af stilistiske hensyn. I modsætning hertil tilslutter jeg mig de kommentarer, som argumenterer for, at Luk.’s ændringer skyldes ny teologisk betydning. I konklusionen argumenterer jeg for, at det karakteristiske portræt af Johannes Døber i Luk. og Acta har en række eksempler på litterære ændringer, så som udeladt, tilføjet/nyt eller tilpasset stof. En nærmere undersøgelse af, hvordan Luk. genskriver de øvrige synoptiske evangeliers døberportrætter, afdækker litterære ændringer, som har fortolkningsmæssige konsekvenser. Jeg vurderer, at det materiale om Johannes’ offentlige virke, som Luk. har til fælles med Matt. (i Luk 3,1- 20), kan læses som stof, evangelisten bag Luk. har læst og genskrevet, og ikke som materiale de deler fra en tabt kilde. Afhandlingen påviser, at evangelisten i Luk.-Acta giver et overensstemmende billede af forholdet mellem Jesus og Johannes, ligesom han undviger at fremstille sidstnævnte som den, der døber førstnævnte. Konsekvensen heraf er, at det lukanske døberportræt afdækker en kreativ litterær aktivitet og en gennemgående genskrivningsstrategi. Endelig argumenteres der i konklusionen for, at 212 John the Baptist’s Public Ministry in Lk 3:1-20

ændringerne i beskrivelsen af døberens navn og virke i Luk. afspejler evangelistens forsøg på at bekræfte læseren i, at Johannes er sekundær i forhold til Jesus.

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